Clash of the Elements Special 2: The Last Exodus
by mewmaster93
Summary: Following off the end of Part 4, Riku discovers a familiar planet now crystallized by an unknown force. In pursuit of this force, Riku comes across a castle floating through the depths of space, and the lord of this castle "Cryxis" may just be his toughest opponent yet. This man holds a great secret behind his mask, and the truth will shed a new light on the 'higher-ups' Riku hates
1. The Exodus Begins

**Author's Note:**

Before anyone gets to reading this, I have to go over a few things.

First off, those of you who are coming here because this is listed under Marvel Comics need to back out now. This story is connected to my Clash of the Elements fic series, and there is a Marvel character who does appear in this story, but to understand a lot of what is going on you'd need to at least read all of the Part 4 stories I've done.

Second, despite this being listed under Marvel, there will be a lot of references to video game series here. There's going to be a major one that acts as the catalyst for this fic's story, and a lot of cameos in the second chapter. But the reason this is listed under Marvel in spite of that is because the one Marvel Character that appears plays a huge role in the overall story. I can't call this a real crossover either because the crossover elements act as plot points, not active character roles, if that makes sense.

So if you want to read on, I can't stop you, but I thought I'd just give a fair warning and I wished I could've found a better way to handle this...

* * *

"_So…We've finally reached this point. Since the birth of that boy, I have watched over him and written down his tales in my books, continuing my duties as the Chronicler like I have since the beginning of time. The downfall of the land blessed by the golden force, the end of the consciousness born from a sentient planet, the sealing away of the strongest galactic warrior, the freedom of the dragons light and dark, the defeat of the ultimate life form, the reunion of the divided worlds, and the destruction of the Lord of the Underworld…The boy has accomplished so much at this point, but he is still not done yet."_

"_Every life can be considered a journey. They all have a beginning, and they all have an end. In my existence, I have written down the journeys of innumerable life forms…From the mightiest gods to even the lowest of sentient life. Everything dies in due time, but a premature death is the worst fate one can truly suffer in this universe. And twice before I have seen an entire universe be wiped away, once by the cruel hand of fate, and again by an unwilling puppet…"_

"_Fufufu, I suppose I am just rambling on at this point. Those of you who have arrived here blindly have likely already left at this point, but those who have patiently followed this journey are wondering just what tale lies ahead for the boy. As I said before, all journeys have a beginning and an end, and it is at this point that I will see fit to write the end of the boy's journey. He has come far, but even he cannot hope to defeat the last remnant of the second old universe…"_

"…_Of course, I am not exactly omniscient, now am I?"_

**CLASH OF THE ELEMENTS SPECIAL 2:**

**THE LAST EXODUS**

It has been about a month since the incident with the Lord of the Underworld on the last world Riku had visited. He was currently flying quickly through the depths of space surrounded by a shield of air that allowed him to breath. He was feeling pretty optimistic lately about life in general, especially after dealing with the problems that had been plaguing his mind through most of his life. He never had to worry about being alone either, as he had the voices of the two dragons of Light and Darkness, Sodenko and Takashi respectively, speaking to him every now and then from the other realm they inhabited.

Speaking of which, as Riku began to fly within range of a sun similar to the one near the Earth he was born on the black dragon remarked _"Riku, wait a minute. There's something familiar about this place…" _Riku stops and floats upright in the middle of an asteroid field before looking at the area around him, and said in a realizing manner "Oh yeah, this is the area where I met the two of you. Can't believe I ended up running into it again."

As Riku gets a little nostalgic while lowering his head, Sodenko remarks gently _"You fly a lot faster through space than you realize. No machine could ever make the travels you've accomplished, even with a hundred years time." _"Yeah, I really never felt like I was going that fast while I was traveling, but I knew enough about distances in space to realize that something was up with my speed while I was in space…" Riku remarks in a rather curious tone before he looks towards the sun and says "That'll still be burning bright for millions of years…"

"_I thought you said you couldn't affect the Sun?" _Takashi remarks in a humored tone, and Riku says to him right away "I said I couldn't affect the Sun, but that doesn't mean I can't sense it's age and remaining lifespan." _"Heh, how contrived, but that's not my concern I guess. Hey, maybe you should try and find the old asteroid you used to hang around on for your training." _Takashi suggested in a rather eager manner, but Riku remarks quickly "Actually, if we're near this asteroid belt, then we'd probably be really close to planet Pop Star. I need to start fulfilling my promises to revisit old worlds, and Kirby's would probably be the easiest one to reach at this time."

"_Of course, that does mean that you'll be turned into a Kirby yourself once you go there again." _Takashi says in a humored manner, and even Sodenko joins in for a moment to chuckle at the thought. Riku sighs and says "Yeah, that was a pretty silly time…But I'll be willing to go through the change again so long as I don't have to recollect all of my elements." _"Then if my memory is right, you will want to go to the other side of that sun and then fly straight forward. If you go as fast as you can in your base state, you should make Pop Star in about an hour." _Takashi advises promptly.

Riku then looks towards the sun and flies towards it, his powers over the elements preventing him from getting burned by the heat even as he circles around it to the other side. Once there, he takes Takashi's advice perfectly and just keeps flying straight ahead, moving so fast that the stars streak past him like blurs in a black expanse. As he goes towards Pop Star, Sodenko can be heard sighing in the other realm, which causes Riku to remark to her "Are you feeling ok, Sodenko?"

"…_Yes, I am feeling just fine."_ The white dragon replies, lying through her divine teeth towards the perceptive Riku. Riku says to her "It has been almost a year since I met you two…And speaking of unfilled promises, I do need to free you from your chain sometime soon, Sodenko. I can tell that's the reason you're sighing…" _"So long as you haven't forgotten that promise, Riku, I won't worry too much…" _Sodenko says in a docile manner before going quiet once more. Riku and the two dragons don't have any more words to say to each other as Riku makes his way to Pop Star.

Once he has flown far enough, Takashi tells Riku to slow down, but the moment he drops out of his high-speed movement he is greeted by something he was not expecting. He had arrived at Pop Star, but the yellow star-shaped world had undergone a significant change since the last time Riku was there. Specifically, the planet was now encased in a perfect sized, blue crystal shell. _"W-What the hell? What happened to the planet?" _Takashi remarks in a surprised tone as Riku stared blankly at the planet, his mouth agape for a moment before he closed it and didn't hesitate to fly towards Pop Star to investigate what was going on.

"_Be careful Riku, we don't know what's waiting for us down there." _Takashi advises in a slightly unhinged tone, and consider the black dragon's usual demeanor that type of reaction caused Riku to nod his head to acknowledge the warning fully. The first thing Riku remarked on was the atmosphere of the planet, saying to the two dragons "The atmosphere is gone…There's not a single trace of it left." This observation is especially noticeable once Riku reaches the point where it should've been and doesn't transform into a Kirby like he did before.

"…_Riku, I am seriously suggesting that we turn around and forget what we've just seen." _Takashi says in a firm and rather serious tone, which causes Riku to stop his descent for a moment in order to say in a puzzled tone "What are you talking about, Takashi?" _"Every atmosphere in the universe is connected to the 'higher-ups'…For someone to completely eliminate the atmosphere of even a single world would require a power almost on level with them, and that is far, FAR beyond anything you have ever faced." _

Riku takes those words into consideration, but then after a nod of his head he continues to fly down towards the surface of the planet. Takashi was naturally infuriated by this as he bluntly remarked _"I thought you got over having a death wise!" _In response, Riku calmly told him "I have to at least see the full extent of what's happened down here. If I run across anything I can't take on, then take me to your dimension right away, but only if I make the call."

"_Guess it only makes sense…" _Takashi begrudgingly admits, and at that point he stays quiet as Riku lands on the surface of Pop Star. Immediately, Riku notices how dark and cold the planet felt, with the stars in the sky looking exactly the same as they did in space due to the lack of atmosphere. Riku heats up the air around his body before he starts running across the crystallized planet, and he recognizes all of the sights he sees since they had been perfectly preserved under the crystal layer.

But the most disturbing thing about what had happened to this planet was that not a single iota of life could be detected on it. No plants, no wildlife, just nothing but an empty and lifeless air spread across the planet, and Riku felt a shiver crawling through him the further he ran across the planet. "How could this have happened…?" Riku inquires to himself as he turns his head to observe whatever he could find along the way. But when he centered his vision in front of him he found himself stopping in place almost right away as the worst possible scenario was discovered on this planet.

Frozen in place with an unknowing smile of happiness on his face was the little puffball Kirby, who was in the middle of eating a piece of strawberry shortcake. His home, his food, all of it was crystallized, and Riku could not detect any life coming from his body. Riku runs over to Kirby and kneels down, extending his hand out to touch the crystal covering him, remarking as the cold sensation of the crystal moves through his nerves "Kirby didn't even encounter whatever did this to him…He was just living his life like he always did…"

"_Do you think he's dead?" _Takashi inquires, and Riku pulls his hand back and shakes his head before remarking "I don't think so. He's just being preserved underneath this crystal layer…But I get the feeling he'd die if I tried to force the crystals off of him." Standing upright, Riku takes another glance around himself and says in a tone of quiet concern "Who would do something like this?"

"_Whoever did this has to be the same person that captured that god of death, Thanatos." _Takashi remarks, and Riku blinks a moment before snapping his right fingers and stating "Now that you mention it, these crystals look exactly like the ones surrounding Thanatos. But why is it that this being would cover one planet in crystal but not the other one?" _"I was going to suggest that the person was looking for something and after meeting resistance they retaliated with this…But that puffball doesn't seem aware that anything was about to happen to his planet."_

Takashi's remark regarding the situation made Riku quickly say to him while folding his arms in thought "A swift and planet-wide attack, the theft of a god of death…Takashi, I know you're worried about my safety, but we have to do something about this." _"…Do you even have an idea where to start?" _Takashi doesn't raise any objections, knowing that Riku wouldn't yield no matter what he said, but his one concern in regards to the pursuit of the being responsible for this attack on Pop Star leads to Riku saying "Maybe I do…"

"The crystals are based around the Earth element, and whoever made them didn't bother to hide the signature exuding from them. All I have to do is focus and I should be able to track down the source of these crystals." Riku explains calmly, and Takashi says to him _"Just be careful. For all we know, this could be a trap." _"It's very possible, but that's the risk we'll have to take. Sodenko, how are you feeling right now?" Riku's inquiry comes as a surprise to the light dragon, as she was indeed feeling some uneasy at that moment.

"…_The lack of life on this world is painful to experience…" _Sodenko says, and Riku quickly says in a reassuring tone "It won't be long before we're off of here. I just need to find the source…" Riku then fully invests his concentration into connecting the crystal to the place it came from. A planet's worth of crystals meant he was able to expand his search out quite a ways through space in all directions, but Riku is quite surprised when it only takes a minute for him to discover the location of the source.

"It's not very far from here…That must mean the attack on Pop Star either was recent, or the person has been lingering around for some reason." Riku remarks, and Takashi says _"We can try and get answers from this person when we get there. If you have an idea of where to go, then you'd best take off now." _Riku nodded in agreement, and after glancing at Kirby's crystallized body and saying "I'll free you and this planet quickly…I promise" he takes off towards the direction of the source.

Going as fast as he could through space, Riku eventually comes across what he was looking for. It was a gigantic distorted castle covered entirely in crystals that was roughly the size of a small planet without any of the gravitational pull of one, and the only thing that had nothing to do with crystals on the outside was a platform of thick rock that acted as the base of the castle and the gargantuan front door that was covered in dragon scales. As Riku approached the front of this strange castle, all he could say in a disturbed tone was "…I can't sense any life in this castle."

"_Does that mean we're dealing with a sentient castle?" _Takashi wonders, and Riku says while cautiously descending towards the front of the castle "I don't know what it means, honestly. This place looks really bizarre though." Once Riku lands on the ground, he takes a look at the doorway into the castle and says "Whoever designed this castle must have killed a lot of dragons to build the front doors…"

"_How barbaric…All those scales must have belong to thousands of dragons. Whoever owns this castle must truly be depraved…" _Takashi remarks in a disturbed tone, and as Riku climbs towards the doors he responds "We won't know for certain until I've gone inside…" The teenage Overlord reaches out for the door, but before he can exert even a bit of force on it he senses something really foreboding coming from above and quickly looks up. He doesn't sense a person, however, but rather the glowing green ball of fire flying straight at him.

Sensing the volatile energies within that fireball, Riku quickly leaps backwards out of the way before he's struck with the attack. Keeping his barrier of air up, Riku watches as the fireball touches the ground, where a miniaturized nuclear explosion goes off that strikes the teenage Overlord anyways, pushing him further back and causing him to drop from the air and land on his back. Though the poison from the nuclear blast spreads through the area, Riku's air shield protects him from it, but not from the blast itself.

While lying on the ground, Riku lifted his head up and watched as a being descended down in front of the door. It was a teenage human with glowing yellow eyes that had a hazard sign surrounding the pupils, and he wore the tattered remains of a hazmat suit that had hardened crystals of nuclear energy poking out across his skin through the holes of his suit. The hair of this human was erratic and burning green, and most of the skin surrounding his deformed teeth was burnt off.

"_I'm…not sensing any life coming from this person…" _Riku thinks to himself as he slowly pushes himself to his feet. He finds the presence of this human boy disturbing, especially with the way their body appeared. "Who are you?" Riku inquires before summoning forth his helix-bladed sword, Muchitsujo out in front of his extended right hand. The human he was facing leaned forward and said in a barely-hinged tone "I have no name. But you are trespassing on Lord Cryxis' domain, Elemental Overlord, and for that reason I will annihilate every last molecule on your body."

This nameless human recognizing Riku by his title surprised him for about a moment, as the more curious issue was just who this "Cryxis" person was. "And just who is this Cryxis person you answer to?" Riku tries to inquire, but the nuclear human just widens his eyes and exclaims "You will refer to him by his title, worm!" The person then lifts their right pointer finger up and fires a barrage of tiny nuclear fireballs straight at Riku.

Riku quickly swings his sword out and uses some of the air surrounding his body to send out a wave of condensed wind at the fireballs, but the moment the wave touches just one of the projectiles not only does a nuclear blast occur but the attack Riku fired is completely wiped away. The teenage Overlord quickly leaps back and takes flight before the remainder of the attacks can strike him. He watches explosion after explosion go off on the ground, but none of the blasts even scratch the rock below, much to Riku's surprise. After firing off the barrage of tiny fireballs, the nuclear human lifts his right hand up and a shockwave of green light shrinks down in front of his palm before he fires off a fast and head-sized bullet of nuclear energy through the poisonous smoke he created from the earlier barrage.

Riku decides to try and slice through this next attack with his sword the very moment he notices it's presence, but even cutting the bullet in half does no good as he instead manages to create two nuclear explosions from the halved projectile. One explosion below and above Riku causes him to be pushed directly backwards quite a few feet through space. This time he took a direct hit from explosion, which weakened him a little bit.

Now that he was far away from the castle, Riku glanced forward and saw the nuclear human lurching forward with arms swinging back and forth and an insane giggle coming from his disjointed mouth. Holding his sword up beside him, Riku remarked "He doesn't seem to be able to fly…That's an advantage for me. I just need to attack his body from afar and victory will be mine." He didn't speak with full confidence though, since he suspected there were still some tricks up this human's tattered sleeves.

The nuclear human raises their right hand up, the palm radiating with hellish nuclear fire as he continues to laugh. Riku then sensed a disturbance in the energies around his body, and was quick to fly at high speeds to the right before a nuclear explosion goes off where he once was. The explosion was the biggest thus far, but Riku was out of way before even the edge of it could touch him. But that one explosion wasn't the end of the attack, as another explosion goes off close to the edge of the first one, followed by a series of them that closes in on Riku's location.

Riku takes a moment to glance over at his opponent to see them swerving their hand to follow him with the glow still around the palm, and it was at that point where Riku flew forward and went for the side of the castle before the nuclear explosions could catch up with him. He was experiencing a moment of panic as he flew, but once he made it to the side of the castle and flipped around to press his back against the crystal wall he was able to safely look to the left and watch as the nuclear explosions came to an end near the corner of the castle, with the last explosion merely blowing Riku's hair around a bit.

Taking a moment to catch his breath as he feels his heart beat against his chest, Riku remarks "That's a dangerous power…He was using the very atoms surrounding me as catalysts for his nuclear blasts." _"You should be thankful that his powers seem to override the possibility of an atomic explosion, or you'd need your higher forms just to escape the blast radius…" _Takashi remarks, being somewhat berating in his tone. Riku says to him quietly afterwards "I've never fought anyone that controls nuclear energy before…But I guess now's the best time to get some experience, right?"

"_You're being way too optimistic about this…" _Takashi says, and Riku says in agreement "Probably, but I think my opponent has shown off all of their tricks. I won't need to transform to get the edge over him, since save for his nuclear blasts he's not that powerful." Riku then dispelled his sword for the time being and said "He can't fly, so I just need to get back around and strike him with a powerful beam…"

"What an interesting idea. Now would probably be the best time to strike me then, worm." The voice of the nuclear human surprises Riku enough to get him to turn his head immediately, where he finds his foe standing on the wall with his right hand raised and gravity seeming to be a non-issue for him. Riku quickly tries to use his speed to get out of the way while looking rather shocked, but the human fires off another bullet of nuclear energy that strikes Riku clean in the chest and sets off a nuclear explosion that launches him straight towards the depths of space below the castle.

Riku quickly recovers, albeit with some burn marks on his body, and flies directly underneath the castle before he can be struck by another bullet launched straight at him. Once below there, he calms himself down and remarks "See, this is why it's never a good idea to assume your opponent's power set…He can walk along the sides of this castle, but he's probably not that fast otherwise he would've attacked me sooner. But now's the perfect time to strike…" Taking little time to rest, Riku quickly holds his right hand out and summons an orb of flame that grows in size until it's burning as bright as a red sun but was as big as Riku's head.

The teenage Overlord then swung his arm out beside him as he flew to the front of the castle's underside and curved upward behind the nuclear human, who was currently walking down the wall to pursue Riku. Without saying a word and focusing entirely on his foe, Riku swings his arm out and unleashes a tunnel-sized blast of flame, hoping to turn his foe's ability against him by igniting the nuclear crystals coming out of his skin.

But Riku would find himself surprised again when the human turned around and just let himself get hit by the flames, which caused the crimson fire to turn a pale green before it all exploded into a series of nuclear blasts that trailed back to Riku. Flying back immediately after the first explosion went off, Riku held his arms out like he wielding a bow and summoned forth one made out of lightning, remarking without losing his composure "Lets try this instead…"

He then fired off a series of lightning arrows through the smoke left behind by the explosions, and he fires off a larger one once the initial salvo left his bow. All arrows meet an untimely end before they can scar their intended target, but as each explosion goes off Riku quickly holds his right hand out and concentrates on the rock connected to the underside of the castle. After a few seconds a talon-shaped formation of stone grows out of the rock and curves through space to try and puncture the nuclear human.

But the man just laughs madly at the attack and raises his hand up, firing up an aura of hazy nuclear energy that touches the stone and causes it to immediately blow up after spawning green cracks across the surface for a moment. But the blasts only go to the origin point of the talon, the rest of the rocks are completely untouched. Riku pays attention to this and quietly says "So he can't harm this castle…"

The nuclear human, with aura still surrounding his body, swings his right arm and madly proclaims "You can't touch me, worm! And because of that you will never even step foot in Lord Cryxis' domain!" He then launches off a nuclear energy bullet larger than the last ones have been, but Riku flies out of the way of that attack and moves towards the front of the castle while quietly saying "You will never hit me from there."

The nuclear human grinned and proceeded to walk along the side of the walls to return to the front of the castle, where he finds Riku standing on the ground where the battle originally started. While Riku waited for his foe's next move, he firmed his fists and thought _"If attacking with my elements isn't going to work, and I can't use my sword to strike him, then my best bet would be to force him to destroy himself…" _

But Takashi quickly remarks _"Or just go into one of your forms and kill him so quickly that he won't hit you with the ensuing nuclear explosion." _Riku says in response to that while raising his right hand up before his waist upon seeing the nuclear human ready to launch another attack _"We don't know how much our opponent knows about us. Best to keep the other forms hidden unless absolutely necessary." _

The moment the man fires another bullet of nuclear energy, Riku is ready to defend against it by swinging his right arm up and summoning forth a large stone wall that takes the attack and shatters in the ensuing explosion. Riku flinches a bit as the stone bits fly back at him, but then finds his opponent standing in front of the door once more with both arms held out beside himself and a nightmarish grin on his face. "Face complete obliteration, worm! Galactic Meltdown!" The man exclaimed as the green fire around his body grew big enough to consume him entirely, with every single one of his fingertips burning so brightly with nuclear energy that it was a wonder that his skin didn't melt off.

Riku did not have much time to react to the incoming attack, so he instead chose to stall out it's release by slamming his hand on the ground and sending out a wave of frost on the ground that reaches the feet of the nuclear human and covers him in a thick block of ice. Riku then leaps back and flies away from the area as the heat from his foe's nuclear fire melts the ice and allows him to continue his attack. The man swings his palms together in front of his body, and all of his glowing tips send out beams of energy that connect together and form two stars.

These two stars are launched simultaneously at the spot where Riku once was, but in the transition process they spin around and form a three-dimensional shape that glows as bright as a newborn star. Once the attack collides with the ground, Riku finds that he would not have made it out of the way fast enough as an explosion goes off as big as the very castle itself, with enough force put into it to obliterate half a planet. Riku is struck by the shockwave emerging from the explosion, and he can feel the very depths of space rumble around him as he braces himself in place despite the heavy damage being inflicted upon his body.

But with this very powerful explosion comes an opportunity, as the nuclear man managed to create a very large cloud of poisonous smoke that would linger around for a bit and obscure Riku's body. After doubling the layer of wind surrounding himself just to be safe, Riku summoned his sword in his left hand and thrust his right one out in front of him before thinking _"This is the chance to strike…" _

Back on the ground, the nuclear man kept his hands raised and exclaims maniacally "Come out, come out wherever you are, worm!" He then targeted the atoms of the smoke and used nuclear blasts to try and find Riku within them all, unaware at the moment that his opponent was using his powers to summon forth tree branches from the ground behind him. But the moment the wood gets close to the man's aura and explode he is alerted of what's going on and quickly prepares himself as a fireball is sent at him from the right, and he swings his arm out to blow it up while remarking "Have you become a coward, worm?!"

The nuclear man then keeps swinging his arms out, alternating between left and right to deal with any attacks that Riku sent his way before pulling them back in close to his body. Riku fired off fireballs, lightning arrows, summoned trees and rock formations, but all of them were destroyed by the man's powers, making it seem like a wasted effort in his eyes as he proclaims in an unhinged tone "I'm untouchable! Just face it, you'll never get past me!"

But this man, so consumed by his own insanity, could never hope to realize what Riku was planning with these seemingly pointless attacks. While having the smoke continue to shroud the man, Riku uses his elements to force the man into a pattern of attack with his hands, using the last bit of energy remaining from the elements to keep track of the ways the hands were moving. Once the right hand was raised up with the back of it facing out, Riku's eyes widened and he sent his sword flying in a curve towards his opponent.

"You can never destroy this sword…" Riku quietly remarks while staring down coldly at his foe and using his right hand to guide the flight path of his sword perfectly. Once Riku lodges the tip of his blade into the back of his foe's hand, the man was naturally puzzled and brought his arm in front of his chest while laughing and saying "You think an indestructible blade is going to stop me?! Such a predicta-" Before his sentence ends, the true nature of Riku's attack comes to light, and with one last push Riku causes the blade to force the palm of his foe's hand to touch the rest of his body.

At that very moment, Riku mentally dispels his blade and holds his hands out to surround himself in a very thick sphere of stone that he pulls away from the castle underside. Without being able to say a word, the nuclear man's body is swiftly filled with glowing cracks that extend out from his palm, and once he is covered entirely he blows up cataclysmically. His explosion spreads out in a blaze of nuclear green fire and obliterates Riku's stone barrier the moment it makes contact, but because of that Riku himself in unharmed from the explosion.

Waiting until the heat from the death of his foe has died down, Riku descends from the sky and blinks a few times, unfazed by the result of his battle for one reason alone. Once he lands, he takes a few steps across the radiated ground and glances down, where he finds all that remains of his opponent…A crystal, human-like mannequin was lying in front of the door with arms crossed in front of a skull that was in a hollow hole centered on the chest. "And that explains why I didn't sense any life coming from that person…" Riku murmurs as he finds himself sickened by the existence of this mannequin.

"_So someone created that opponent for you by using that mannequin as a vessel? Unbelievable…" _Takashi remarks quietly, and as Riku lifts his head up to look at the gargantuan door in front of him he says rather seriously "It seems you might've been right about our foe being incredibly powerful, Takashi. The ability to create life through vessels and turn an entire planet to crystal…I can't imagine what type of being this Cryxis person is, but no matter how dangerous he is, I have to find and face him…"

Riku clenches his right fist up beside himself, trembling a bit in both anticipation and fear before he composes himself with a deep breath. He then held his hand out and touched the right side of the gargantuan scaled door, pushing it forward with such a heavy creaking noise that he twitched a bit in pain. But when he opened it well enough, he found himself ready to go through and see just what exactly this person named 'Cryxis' was…

_Next Time: An Embrace_


	2. The Mausoleum of Fear and Death

With the door to the crystal castle pushed open, Riku slowly walks inside, leaving the mannequin of the nuclear human behind him as she shut the door tight and began to scan the area around him. The area seemed like a normal foyer in a castle, complete with a large staircase leading up to a hallway and a lot of pillars supporting the ceiling. The pillars did not have a smooth surface to them, and their jagged, lifeless forms stuck out more than anything else in the room at the moment. "…I expected to run into another mannequin right when I entered the castle." Riku states quietly.

Riku began to step forward, being cautious not to activate any traps that may be hidden on the ground. While walking, he glanced to the left and looked out the windows, where he saw that the castle was passing by a large blue sun. The light of the sun was quite beautiful amongst the atmosphere of red space and white stars, and Riku had to stop for a moment to enjoy the beauty of space outside before he realized something rather crucial about the innards of the castle. Holding his right hand out after turning towards the staircase, Riku recognizes the fact that there was a breathable atmosphere.

"I can't believe it…" Riku says as he drops the barrier of air around his body and takes a breath in, finding that the air was incredibly clean, as though he was on the surface of a normal planet. But when he sensed this atmosphere, he could only blink suspiciously and remark "…But why is this here? There's no life forms in this castle…" _"Maybe the later mannequins require air to activate their powers. That nuclear human didn't need it, after all…" _Takashi remarks.

Riku folds his arms together and says "I don't think that's a good assumption…That mannequin we just fought defied nuclear physics, after all." _"Hmm…You know, did you ever assume that maybe you just can't detect the person who runs the castle? That 'Cryxis' person could likely still require air to survive." _Takashi theorizes, but Riku shakes his head while parting his arms and saying "No, I would definitely sense that person…But then again…"

Thinking back just a few minutes to the beginning of his fight with the mannequin, Riku says "The mannequin knew me by title. Maybe Cryxis knows how to hide his presence from my powers…Or perhaps…" With another theory coming to mind, Riku holds his right hand out and quickly summons a pillar of stone through the crystal flooring, which causes him to breathe a sigh of relief since his powers weren't at all neutralized. "I definitely would have left if I couldn't use my powers here…" Riku then remarked.

"…_Riku, before you move on, can I say something to you?" _Sodenko suddenly asked, which surprised both Takashi and Riku. Riku nodded his head though to approve her request, and the dragon of light explained _"I think I am starting to remember something about this 'Cryxis' person…Or at least, I remember stories told to me about him while I was still a part of my tribe." "What? Our tribes may have focused on differing elements, but there's no way I wouldn't have learned about the same stuff you did, sister."_

"_Our tribe focused on telling nightmarish tales to the children to teach them how to utilize fear when they properly gained the powers of darkness…The so-called legend of Cryxis was one of the more commonly spoke tales." _Sodenko mentioned, and Riku insisted "Please, I'd like to hear what you know." _"…The legend goes that every now and then, a castle made of pure crystal would appear above a planet, but without doing a thing to that world the castle would vanish…People would go to investigate the castle sometimes, but very few would return from their travels."_

"_The most common thing that would happen is that they would say the name 'Cryxis' and nothing else…They could never describe the appearance of that person, for no one has ever made it to him. The legend then spoke of a rare instance where the castle would appear above the planet, and in a flash said planet would become covered in crystal. No matter what anyone tried, the planet would not be reverted until a year had passed, and no one was aware of what had happened to their world."_

"_And the scariest part about this castle is that as time passed on, it became harder and harder for the 'higher-ups' to keep track of this castle until eventually it simply became invisible, and thus no one ever bothered trying to find it ever again. Though I wonder if perhaps the original Elemental Overlord did try and find this 'Cryxis' person…" _Sodenko finished her story, and Riku found himself rubbing his chin in intrigue at the story before he remarked "So basically, it was supposed to be a galactic bogeyman story…But it seems as though the legend is true."

"_So it seems…" _Sodenko remarks in a melancholy tone, with Takashi stating to her right away in a bothered tone _"You know sister, you could've told us this when we saw that crystallized planet." "I thought the planet's state was a coincidence until I heard that mannequin say his master's name. By that point Riku was too deep into his battle for me to explain the story…" _Sodenko explains her delay in telling the truth, and Riku says "I'm not too worried about that part, I'm just glad to have more knowledge regarding our foe."

"_But a man who can hide himself from the 'higher-ups'? There are very, very few people in this entire universe who can manage that, but that doesn't necessarily mean he utilizes the same tricks that the others do…Especially since as far as Sodenko's story goes, it was a gradual process." _Takashi remarks, and Riku says "I don't care if he can hide himself from the 'higher-ups'…I was able to find his castle, which means it's not an absolute concealment. I should really get to exploring further into the castle now…"

Though Takashi recognized Riku's moment of impatience, he felt the need to state _"If a planet is restored after a year, then do we really need to face Cryxis?" _Riku glared behind his shoulder into the realm Takashi was in and stated "I know what it's like to be trapped in an inanimate state for more than a year…It's a horrible feeling, even if Kirby will awaken without any knowledge of what has occurred." _"…True, I had forgotten all about that. I won't hold you back any longer then, Riku."_

With Takashi no longer holding him back, Riku nodded his head and advanced forth through the castle, walking up the staircase to see what else he could find. Despite how much room could be filled within this planet sized building, Riku's path through the castle was rather straightforward. All he had to deal with was staircase after staircase for the most part, with the occasional hallway breaking up the pace ever so slightly. Riku actually felt a bit worried about the stagnation of the environment, as there wasn't even a change in the colors of the crystals nor any windows past the ones at the lobby to break up the mood.

"Why would anyone create something like this?" Riku comments on as he lays one hand against the wall beside him and stares up at the stairs he still had to climb, noting how it went so high up that it began to go into the darkness. "A planet-sized castle, empty and devoid of life…With only some mannequins to act as it's inhabitants…" _"It makes appearances only occasionally, and it seems to do nothing to the worlds it goes near expect for the times where it does choose to freeze a planet in a crystal state for no discernible reason." _Takashi remarks.

"…You know, just because we heard those mannequins talk about a Cryxis figure doesn't mean that they exist…What if they are protecting the memory of the man who inhabited this castle?" Riku theorizes as he continued to climb the stairs, with Takashi remarking bluntly _"I really wish we didn't have to keep throwing out theories here…" _"A castle cannot go on forever, especially if it's as straightforward as this one. Eventually we'll find something…" Riku says in a confident tone.

Riku then resumes climbing the staircase, at which point Takashi comments in a rather puzzled tone _"…You could just fly up to the top of the staircase, you know." _Riku responds with a smile "Nah, if I do that I bet a trap will activate to drop me back to the bottom. That sounds like the type of thing I'd run into." _"Even though you haven't run into a single trap so far…" _Takashi remarks bluntly, and this causes Riku to mention to him "I told you already, I'm going to be cautious…You seem to be really antsy right now, Takashi."

"_I'm just getting a really bad vibe from this castle…The deeper we go, the stronger this feeling gets." _Takashi remarks after a momentary shiver, and Sodenko is turn mentions _"Have you not sensed this feeling at all, Riku?" _Riku shook his head as he continued to climb the stairs, mentioning to both dragons "Whatever feeling you guys are getting, it's not hitting me at all. But I'll keep that in mind for later…"

After quite a few minutes of ascending the stairs, Riku finds the first window he's seen in this castle since the beginning. Out in the depths of space, Riku could see some planets cluttered around a moon larger than them all combined, and each planet had a tiny sun that helped to sustain life on those hospitable worlds. "The wonders of the universe…" Riku remarks in awe with a smile before he turns around and leans against the wall beside the window, taking a momentary break after using all that energy to climb the stairs.

With one hand laid against his chest, Riku says "You know, I wonder if someday humanity will ever gain the technology to make it to places like those planets I just saw…" _"Anything's possible, really. After this journey of yours, nothing really seems impossible, does it?" _Takashi comments in a rather docile tone, and Riku nodded his head and grinned half-heartedly before remarking "You know…It's really surprising to think that it has been two years since I was born…I've seen so much in my life that I honestly would feel satisfied if I were to just drop dead right now."

"_Please don't start talking like that again, Riku…" _Takashi remarks with a scowl on his face, and Riku laughs a moment before waving his hand out and mentioning "Relax, I'm not going to go for that type of behavior ever again…I'm just pointing out how I feel about my journey. You've been helpful through a lot of it, both of you…Though I'm sorry I dragged you into some tough situations." _"Well the fact you've kept us both alive throughout all of those problems is something we are very appreciative for." _Sodenko remarks honestly.

"I've tried, but you've saved my necks just as much as I've saved yours." Riku admits, and after folding his arms against his chest and pulling away from the wall he remarks "…It's been a year since your brother was freed from the chain, Sodenko. Once we're done dealing with Cryxis, I'm definitely going to break that chain of yours, and the two of you can go where you want in the universe." _"Do you really think we're going to just leave your side, Riku?" _Takashi remarks with a chuckle.

Riku glanced up a bit and grinned, telling the two dragons honestly "Not really, no. Honestly, considering Takashi's ability to open rifts that would allow you to travel quickly through the universe, the two of you could come see me again anytime you wanted. But you both should go out and explore the universe up-close instead of lingering behind me in that dark realm." _"…I don't know what to say, Riku." _Sodenko gently remarks.

"I'd say you've earned it. Traveling with me for a year and having to deal with all that stuff that you had to seems to have mellowed you out quite a bit." Riku remarks, and after pulling his arms away from his body and giving them a good shake to loosen the muscles he continues on through the castle while Takashi mentions _"Heh, if my sister starts acting up again, I'll make sure to discipline her." "You can try, brother…" _Sodenko says in a sincerely playful tone.

"Hahah…Siblings…" Riku remarks, which leads to him hanging his head slightly and thinking about his brother, the person who brought him into this world as his clone. The two had only interacted the day he was created, and he had no idea just how his brother was doing in the slightest. The playful remarks between Sodenko and Takashi brought on these thoughts in Riku's mind, and a part of him wished to have fun with his brother if he ever managed to make his way back to his Earth.

"…That's for the future to decide if I make it back or not…" Riku murmurs as he finds himself walking into a room bathed in a heavy darkness, which grabs his attention due to the heavy contrast from the pale light of the stars he experienced before. But when the teenage Overlord raised his head up he was shocked by what he found. Spread out as far as the eye can see are multiple panels of various sizes and shapes, each one containing a different being trapped within a crystal shell that was composed of a brighter crystal than everything Riku had seen so far.

From the entrance of this room alone, Riku could see at least fifty of these statues, but there were likely many more spread about. When Riku takes one step forward, a wall of crystal crashes down in the doorway behind him, sealing him into this room much to his surprise. He flinched and glanced back, but found himself dealing with the nearly-blinding darkness in the room before he could even see the wall for a second. "Hmm…It seems Cryxis wants me trapped in this room…Or he doesn't want me to consider turning around." Riku comments.

"…_Riku, you should probably look at that statue to the left of you…" _Takashi remarks, while Sodenko could be heard shivering uncontrollably beside him. Riku turns his head to the left, and when he glances at the statue standing right beside him he looked a little bit surprised by what he found. Trapped in crystal was a being made of a bodiless cloak riddled with bullet holes and two chains crossing in front of it in an X-shape. The being wielded two pistols with barrels as long as half of it's height, and both guns were raised up as though it was ready to attack.

"I know this creature…It's called a Reaper…But it comes from a different world than the Reapers I've actually seen." Riku remarks, and Takashi mentions _"You shouldn't take about it like it's part of a species. There is only one of these Reapers in the entire universe…They are hunters, seeking out only those who would defy their deaths. I've only seen the Reaper once before, and that was when it was pursuing the original reincarnation of the Elemental Overlord." _

"The original is marked for death? …That's something I'll have to remember if I ever encounter him, but I have to wonder just why this statue of the Reaper is inside of this castle." Riku's curiosity causes him to walk towards the statue and reach his hand out to try and touch it, but Sodenko suddenly exclaims much to the disdain of Riku's heart _"Get away from that!" _Riku pulls his hand back without hesitation and blinks twice in surprise before Sodenko explains in an unhinged tone _"I-I've never sensed so much death in a single area…Even though this Reaper is crystallized, he still exudes his aura of death…If you touched him, you'd likely die, Riku."_

"…Thanks for the timely warning, Sodenko." Riku says as he shifts stares between his hand and the crystallized Reaper. Riku then swung his arm out and stated "…Now that you mention it, I'm starting to feel the presence of death in this room. Could it be that all of these statues are beings that represent death in some form?" _"I can only recognize the Reaper at the moment, Riku…It's up to you to identify whichever statues you can." _Takashi states.

"Hmmm…I guess now would be the best time to utilize my knowledge of other worlds. I should also be on the lookout for Thanatos' statue, since judging by the theme of this room he has to be here somewhere…" Riku remarks, and the dragons go into a state of silence to allow the boy a chance to concentrate on the statues surrounding him. At first, Riku goes forward through the statues to try and identify them, but it takes him at least half a minute of slow walking before he finds the first thing he recognizes.

Suspended above the air was a heart-shaped mask with spikes around the edge and a wooden, unnatural pair of eyes at the front. "This is Majora's Mask…I can understand how this would fit the theme of death…" Riku remarks, feeling good knowing that if this mask existed here, that means the land of Termina did not suffer a terrible fate. Moving on, Riku eventually finds another familiar figure. It was a cloaked skeleton wielding a deathly scythe that was suspended in mid-air and appeared ready to attack a figure.

"This is Death…More specifically, the being named Death from the world of vampires and living castles." Riku remarks in an intrigued tone, and then he turns to the right and notices another creature close to Death. It was a nineteen foot tall winged creatures with sharp talons on it's wings and tail, and behind it's head was a mane of grey fur. To the right of this creature was a fourteen foot tall draconic serpent with wings consisting of black tendrils and yellow-grey spike protruding from the sides of it's body.

"Yveltal and Giratina…The Destruction and Renegade Pokemon respectively…I got to admit, if it wasn't for how serious this situation seems to be, I would've gotten a laugh if the two were trapped in crystal PokeBalls…" Riku says, but with a puzzled tilt of his head he then notes the appearance of Giratina by saying "Either this castle can cross into other dimensions, or Cryxis made a personal visit to the Distortion World to grab this Pokemon…"

"_Hmmm…So it's not just limited to death, is it?" _Takashi says in regards to the presence of the Giratina statue, to which Riku shakes his head and remarks "No, I can see how Giratina fits the theme…Just barely though." _"We could be at this for a very long time, Riku…Is there really any point to checking all this when the theme is quite clear?" _Takashi points out as Riku turns away from the Pokemon statues and continues on.

"I'm just identifying what I can while I'm looking for Thanatos' statue…I can't imagine how other worlds are being affected by the lack of death on their worlds." Riku ponders while folding his arms together, and Takashi mentions _"More than likely the 'higher-ups' are managing the departed souls, though considering you and Pit slew the Lord of the Underworld they are likely dealing with quite a lot more work than they were beforehand. Though now that you're here, they SHOULD know about Cryxis and have immediately retaliated against him…"_

"I really don't want to bother thinking about that. Besides, I'll be dealing with this problem myself…" Riku comments, and Takashi went oddly silent after that point, which Riku makes a priority of addressing as he lifts his right hand up and asks "Takashi, don't you have anything to say about this topic?" _"…Sorry Riku, I don't have anything else to really say about this whole matter. I only know so much about the 'higher-ups', after all…"_

After the black dragon's response, Riku says in a lamenting manner "Yeah, I guess we're both just as blind when it comes to them…" He then turns his head back towards the depths of darkness in front of him, and at long last he runs across the statue of Thanatos that he had been seeking. The goofy, lovable lord of death from Pit's world was stuck in a rather awkward pose since he was captured after being soundly defeated in battle. "So this is where you were taken…To think that Cryxis' castle was right above the planet at that point and no one even knew." Riku quietly comments on.

"_So now that you've confirmed his presence, is it time for us to move on through the rest of the castle?" _Takashi inquires, and with a nod of his head Riku states "I just need to find an exit through the darkness, which shouldn't be too-" Riku stops himself from talking as he turns his head, noticing something that he just could not believe would be here even in spite of the theme of death amongst the statues thus far. With his eyes widened a bit in fright, Riku murmurs out the rest of his prior sentence "-hard…" before he steps towards the particular statue he found.

This statue was the biggest of them all so far, and it consisted of a core with a series of thin, ethereal bone hands and arms stretched out like a web around the core. Just looking at this statue caused Riku to feel unwell, as he found the air around him feeling heavy, thus making it harder to breathe. Riku had to back off a bit just to get a hold of himself, but as he laid one hand on his chest and held his mouth agape with a pant Takashi remarked in a bewildered tone _"Riku, what's going on? Just what is that monstrosity?!" _

"That…That's Nyx…But it shouldn't be possible for it to be here…It's not something that exists on a physical plain of existence…It's a concept, impossible to touch or kill…And yet this Cryxis person managed to capture it in crystal…" As Riku explains these details to Takashi, he couldn't help but grin a bit in intrigue, saying to Takashi after laughing in a partially unhinged manner "This Cryxis person…He's definitely a very interesting opponent. Creating beings via mannequins, hiding himself from the 'higher-ups', capturing beings that represent death even if they do not exist on a physical plain…"

"_Are you excited to face such a foe…? Or perhaps…you feel fear?" _An echoing, raspy voice that doesn't belong to the two dragons enters Riku's eardrums, and as he lifts his head up after finishing his recovery against the presence of Nyx's statue he looks around for any signs of the being that voice belonged to. "Who's there?" Riku inquired calmly, at which point he noticed that the darkness in this room seemed to become a little bit thicker.

"_I am here, I am there…I am everywhere in this room. I have no name, but I am the second of Lord Cryxis' guardians." _The voice stated, and despite at first thinking that he was facing the very darkness in this room the things that voice said made him quickly comment "So, another one of his mannequins, then?" _"Fufufu, you're quite certain of that, aren't you? Elemental Overlord…You act so sure, but you cannot see me let alone comprehend the form I currently take…Just because the gatekeeper was a mannequin does not mean I am."_

The mannequins remark is then followed by the darkness in the room increasing further, which makes Riku begin to doubt his assumption regarding his foe's true form. Without any knowledge of where to look and his vision dimming with every second, Riku hesitated to draw his sword. _"With just a thought…I can free all these aspects of death from their status…And you, who should not exist in this world, will become their immediate target. You will die in many ways, Elemental Overlord…"_

"…Are you trying to make me experience fear, mannequin?" Riku says while closing his eyes and trying to stay calm. _"I am doing nothing of the sort…The shivers in your spine, the goosebumps on your skin…That's all just a natural reaction to your inevitable demise. You are outclassed against my master, you cannot survive against the aspects of death that exist…Feeling fear is completely justified in this situation, and I am just someone observing your little breakdown into a state of unending panic."_

The mannequin's remarks makes Riku quickly respond with "I hope you got more tricks up your sleeves than this, because you aren't making me experience anything but annoyance." _"Your bravery is cute, Elemental Overlord…But I am not playing any tricks." _"…Yes you are. I can sense the fear toxins in the air, and I'm currently pushing them away with a barrier of air." Riku remarks rather quickly, sighing once due to how predictable the mannequin was behaving.

"…_Hmm, I did no expect you to figure out that trick so quickly. But there is more than one way to inflict fear upon a person besides the natural reaction in a body or a toxin affecting your nerves…" _Once the mannequin sounded briefly arrogant, Riku had to say to him "What exactly do you expect to do to make me bend to your fear? If all you plan to do is try to scare me by exploiting a fear of death, then you've already lost. Every being fears death, no matter how far they go to deny it…If you want to make me fear something, you will have to go far deeper than that, but I doubt you have the strength to force yourself that deep into my mind." Once Riku has calmly boasted, the darkness surrounding him thickens to the point that he can no longer see his body, and the mannequin laughs rather slyly before saying _"Like I said…there is more than one way to make one feel fear…"_

"_I know where you are at all times…And you are within my grasp! It's time to face every fear in the known universe!" _The mannequin then fires off a blast of magic from behind Riku's current location, and the teenage Overlord quickly crumbles onto his knees as he feels everything that can ever be feared. Paranoia, fear of death, fear of heights, all those fears become one with Riku's mind, and all other noises are shut out in his head as he lays on his hands and knees and trembles uncontrollably.

"_Crumble apart, Elemental Overlord, by the fears of the entire universe. There is nothing you can do now." _The mannequin boasts calmly, feeling assured of his victory. But even with all the fears plaguing his body, Riku still was able to use rationality to determine one particular thing. These fears, for all they were worth, were not a true part of Riku's psyche. As such, he could get a hold of himself just enough to lift his right hand up and summon his sword, quickly concentrating on it in order to change into his Light Form within the darkness.

Then, after charging the diamond blade of his katana with plenty of light, Riku stabbed it into the ground and unleashed an explosion of light to cover the area around him, dispelling away the darkness as the bright light goes straight for where the mannequin of fear was at. _"Impossibleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" _The mannequin is consumed by the light, screaming out in fear and agony as he is completely disintegrated by Riku's power, which causes the magic gripping Riku's mind to dispel almost instantly.

Riku pants while recovering from the grip of fear, and as he lifts his body up he slams his katana back into the hilt beside his body before reverting back to his regular form. The darkness goes back to it's normal density, and Riku is back onto his feet not long after that. Once recognizing that the voice of the fear mannequin was gone, Riku stated quietly "…I…I'm glad I took care of that quickly…"

Riku then turns around and walks past the Nyx statue, going until he reaches the spot where the mannequin stood, and finds the exit out of this death filled room. "…This must be the way to Cryxis' throne room." Riku says, using his left foot to push the crystal mannequin out of the way without looking down at it. "…You know, Takashi, Sodenko…I get the oddest feeling we're not dealing with a man named Cryxis here." Riku brought this up rather suddenly, and Takashi remarked in a surprised tone _"What? How could you suspect that he's someone else?"_

"This room…Why would anyone go out of their way to capture JUST beings that represent death? I have a theory as to who Cryxis truly is, but I need to the see the man himself before I can confirm the truth." Riku explains while laying one hand on his chin. _"Then keep going. If you know who Cryxis is, then perhaps we can exploit a weakness in order to secure a victory after all." _Takashi urges, and as Riku stares into the lit up hallway ahead of him he states "…If only it were that simple, Takashi." He then continued onward, leaving the room of death behind him entirely…

_Next Time: A Reflection_


	3. An Unexpected Reflection

With two mannequins beaten on his path towards Cryxis, Riku now found himself in a crystal hallway with a different aesthetic than the rest of the castle thus far. The crystals were both blue and black in design, and there were plenty of windows on the left side of the room. "So we're on the western part of the castle…Likely close to the top floor. Let me check." Riku remarks before walking in front of the closest window and looking down while covering his body briefly with air. The bottom of the castle was miles down, and a glance up showed the roof wasn't very far away.

Riku then pulls back, satisfied that his assumption was correct, and he continues to move on towards the other end of the hallway. _"Riku, before we go on any further, can you at least take a moment to explain to us just who Cryxis really is?" _Riku pauses in place after Takashi makes an inquiry, glancing up a bit and saying "I could, but then we'd be standing around for quite a bit of time." _"Huh? Does this person have an extensive history or something?" _Takashi remarks in a puzzled tone.

"According to my memories, yeah, the guy has been around for quite a long time." Riku states rather nonchalantly, and Takashi ponders right away _"I'm more surprised that you've supposedly figured this mystery out before us." _"Yeah…I can't say I'm happy about figuring this out. It makes sense now why the 'higher-ups' would put such a high priority on trying to find 'Cryxis'. It's not just because the man has been capturing the aspects of death of each world…" The way Riku suddenly ends his sentence was rather surprising to the two dragons.

Sodenko remarks to him because of that _"…Is there something else you want to say, Riku?" _"Not at all. I answered your question, and that's all there is to it." Riku responds after taking a momentary pause to not arouse suspicion from his allies, secretly keeping away the knowledge that what he knew about his foe would cause them to become gravely concerned for his safety. While Riku thought about that, he had a little bit of concern on his face, something he didn't exactly want to express fully because of how attentive his allies were being.

After continuing down the hallway for a bit, Riku comments on the change in crystals in the area "Black mixed in with the blue…If this castle was truly alive, I'd almost assume we were heading towards the mouth of the beast." _"What a rather odd observation…" _Takashi states, and Riku explains his reasoning with a raise of his right pointer finger as he walked "It wouldn't be too odd for a creature of supernatural origin to have a multicolored mouth, that's all I'm saying."

"_I'd hate to imagine this castle being alive…A beast as big as a planet could cause untold damage to the entire universe before it was stopped." _Takashi states, and Riku found that comment rather intriguing, and he responds by scratching at his chin and asking "Do you know no types of beings like that? Or are they just rare in the universe?" _"Likely rare. I've never heard of any, at the least. Sodenko and mine's Lord of Chaos form is roughly planet-sized, but I feel it's not fair to count ourselves in this little tally." _Takashi states.

"…What's going on here?" Riku whispers out after focusing back on the area in front of him. Going against his better judgment, Riku says to the two dragons "Ok, serious question here you two…Does the name 'Galactus' mean anything?" _"…I've never heard that name before. Is that supposed to be a planet-sized being?" _Sodenko inquires gently, and Riku states slowly in response "Yes…he is."

"_Ok Riku, spill…Why are you expecting us to know both Cryxis' real identity and this Galactus being? Are the two connected in some way?" _Takashi bluntly tries to force some answers out of Riku, and Riku sighs a bit before stating to the two dragons in a confused tone "I just don't get it. After finding out that everything is considered a video game on Earth has an actual world out there in space, I assumed that the same would go for other fictional realms…What we've found out about Cryxis fits in with my assumptions, and yet at the same time you two don't know anything about someone as infamous as Galactus…"

"_And let me guess, we'd be here a while if you bothered to tell us who that is?" _Takashi bluntly remarks, and Riku says to him "We're sticking around quite a while in this hallway because you keep trying to get information out of me. Trust me, the moment we hit Cryxis' throne room you'll learn everything you need to know." _"Hmm, if you insist…" _Takashi responds with a little annoyance in his voice, and then he drops the issue of Riku's cryptic questions and allows him to continue on unimpeded.

Riku finally makes it through the doorway at the other side of the hallway, and he ends up at a curved hallway filled with darkness. At this point Riku gets tired of slowly walking through the castle and breaks into a sprint, especially since there have been no traps in any of these rooms. He makes it to the end of this hallway in a couple of minutes because of that, and finds himself in a small passage where a similar hallway can be seen on the other side of the room. "Guess there were two ways out of that room." Riku comments as he turns to walk through the north part of the passage.

There he finds a series of skulls littered on both sides of the room, all of them mixed into the structure of the deathly, multicolored crystals. As Riku steps closer to the other side of the room, the flames suddenly combust with black flames as though to greet Riku's appearance here. Riku pauses for a moment at the sight of the flames, but then moves on without saying a word. More skulls ignite until Riku reaches the very end of the hallway, at which point all of the skulls burn out with a deathly whisper across the air that sends a chill down Riku's spine.

But he didn't care much about that feeling as he entered the final room of this empty castle. This place was wide-open with plenty of crystals spikes protruding out of the left and right walls, and at the end was a single gigantic throne below what appeared to be a pulsating, organic ruby. _"Is that supposed to be a heart?" _Takashi remarks, and as Riku traverses the throne room he watches as the ruby pounded like a heart normally would, which caused a crimson light to briefly flash through the blue crystals. Bothered by this, Riku comments "…I wouldn't doubt it" before he glances at the throne.

"Cryxis! I know you're here! Come out!" Riku exclaims, and at that moment the ruby stops pulsating, with the very castle noticeably coming to a halt at the same time. "So this castle is alive…In the sense that it's controlled by Cryxis' will." Riku murmurs out before he then focuses back on the throne, but when he turns to look at it he is surprised by who appears. Descending from the ceiling is a woman draped in a very large cloak that changed design with every inch she moved, showing a mosaic reflection of all around her in the process. Her face was that of a elegant, middle-aged woman with long ivory hair and blackish lips, and by the time she finishes descending she's right in front of the throne with her cloak waving about. She did not appear to have a body.

"You are not Cryxis…In fact, there's no reason why you should even be here." Riku says, puzzled by the presence of this woman for some reason. _"I-Impossible…Why does that being have the face of the original Elemental Overlord?!" _Takashi exclaims suddenly in a tone of sheer disbelief, which catches Riku by surprise more because of the context rather than the suddenness of the remark. "What? You see a different face on this person? …Then it seems I was mistaken, this is just another mannequin." Riku says before looking back at the mannequin.

"But just why am I seeing that face…? I've never seen her before…" Riku murmurs out, disturbed by the mannequin's presence here especially after he demanded Cryxis' appearance. "Lord Cryxis wishes not to acknowledge your presence, Elemental Overlord. You have wasted your time by coming this far." The woman says slowly and elegantly, and Riku turns his body a bit to the side before glaring at the woman and telling her "Did he command you to say that, mannequin?"

"No. It is through my own will that I am telling you to leave." The woman replies with a little bit of irritation in her voice, her expression eerily staying in place in spite of the emotions she expressed. "Unless you personally plan to eject me from the castle, then I'm staying here and confronting your master. Tell me, mannequin, do you even know what your master's true identity is?" Riku offers up a rather piercing question to the mannequin, who visibly flinches afterwards.

"My master's identity is Cryxis, the most powerful lord in all of the known universe." The mannequin dully replies, and Riku states "So you don't know the truth. Even the mannequins know nothing about the true identity of their master." _"Then perhaps your assumption is incorrect, Riku." _Takashi states, and Riku shakes his head before saying to him "No, it just means that he is purposely ensuring that no one figures out who he is. After all, if the mannequins supposedly have their own wills save for their loyalty to their Lord, then it'd be easy for them to say what his true name is."

"You can have your assumptions all you want, Elemental Overlord, but my master shall always have just one identity, and that is Lord Cryxis." The mannequin states again, and Riku responds by drawing his sword and pointing it at the mannequin before remarking "Then if you wish to refer to him by that name, that's your decision, your will being yours…But that just means I'll fight you in order to lure Cryxis out from hiding. If you think you truly have a will of your own, then do you actually want to surrender it to the hands of death?"

The mannequin's cloak ruffled out before she replied to the boy "I do not fear death…I have been taught that death is nothing to fear, but to love." "…That's all I needed to hear." Riku says before firming his expression into a serious one and performing a quick swing of his sword out to send a wave of raw power across the throne room, which blew the unflinching mannequin's cloak back quite a bit. "I faced a mannequin with the power to destroy, one with the power to make one fear…And you have the power of reflection, don't you?"

"I do…I exist not just to reflect upon my master the image of the one he has long since lost, but to also deflect away any who try to approach him as though they assume they are worthy of being his equal or superior. Out of all mannequins, I have existed the longest, and have learned both my master's forgiveness and cruelty firsthand…" The mannequin stoically remarks, but as Riku points out to her "And yet he has not given you a name."

"…Your words cannot sway me, Elemental Overlord. So long as I exist as the shield of my master, I know he trusts me above all else in this universe." The mannequin explains without swaying once in her devotion, and after Riku centers his sword in front of his body he tells her "Then that's not a respectful relationship, but rather a cruel servitude. I pity your existence, loyal mannequin…" Focusing on his sword, Riku bathes himself in a shell of light once more and transforms into his Light Form, swinging his diamond katana out while spreading his wings out as far as he can.

"You choose to fight me with the power of light even while knowing what my powers are?" The mannequin inquires, unfazed by the power Riku was currently wielding against her. Riku, now ready for battle, did not respond to what the mannequin said to him and quickly swung his sword across the ground to slash a wave of light forward at his foe. The mannequin's cloak waved a bit before a large crystal mirror shot up in front of her to intercept the wave of light.

The mirror glows brightly and immediately flips the wave of light around to send it right back at Riku. Riku leaps up quickly before he's hit with his own attack, drawing his sword back before slashing the air in front of him to create a scar of light that shoots a rapid-fire barrage of light needles that flies right above the mirror. But this time the mannequin gestures her cloak upward and causes another mirror to extend diagonally out from the top of the first one. This reflects all the needles back at Riku, who swings his wings in front of his body to block them all. He then lowers the tips of his wings slightly to glance down at the mannequin, only to find she was hiding behind the two mirror she summoned.

As such, her vision was also blocked in the front, which allowed Riku to swing his wings out and then lift his left hand above his hand. Extending all fingers out, Riku applies light energy onto each tip and then fires off multiple spheres of light off around the air above the mannequin, creating an inescapable dome after expanding the size of the orbs three times over. Without hesitation, Riku sends all of the orbs at the mannequin at the same time, but with quick reflexes she waves her cloak out in all directions and summons forth a perfect dome of mirror that absorbs every orb of light.

A second later, as Riku pays close attention to the mirrors, the orbs of light are launched out and sent back at Riku, a homing effect added to them so they wouldn't just go back to their origin point and fade out of existence. "Ok…Let's try this out…" Riku says as he holds his left hand out and exerts his power in order to control all of the lights orbs, stopping them in place for a moment before fusing them together into a gigantic orb that he aims right at the first mirror he attacked.

Firing off this gigantic orb, Riku hoped to overwhelm the mirror with all of this light energy instead of having it reflected back at him, but when the orb is swallowed into the mirror Riku realizes that his plan had already failed. Thus, he holds his katana in front of his body and prepares for the moment where his attack is sent back at him. But when the orb is fired back and approaches his body, Riku ends up bringing his katana down onto a mirror that was suddenly thrown into the path of the orb, slanted to the left so the orb ends up getting reflected in that direction.

At the same time, Riku's cut causes the back of the mirror to glow, and he finds his physical strength repelled back at him enough to force his arms back in recoil. He was left defenseless for a few seconds, and during that period of time the mannequin's cloak constantly fluttered as she sent mirrors out from her dome to create a reflecting path for Riku's attack, eventually moving it so it can fly towards Riku's backside. By that point Riku was able to recover from the recoil of physical force and turn around, but he wasn't able to get a swing in before he was struck by the giant orb.

The orb explodes in a burst of light and sends Riku flying right into the ground, which cracked his armor quite a bit due to the hardness of the crystal floor. The nerve ending on the back of the wings were also pinched, causing Riku to grimace in pain as a sharp sensation goes through his brain and heart, but the pain only lasts a little bit before Riku flaps his wings against the ground to apply enough force to lift himself up and allow him to spin around to face the mannequin while swinging his katana in front of him.

But by the time he faced the mannequin Riku was surprised to find that there were multiple mannequins around the throne area, both on the air and in the ground. It was clearly a trick played by her reflection powers to hide where she currently was, but the woman also managed to reflect her voice across the room to add to the illusion via echoes "You cannot touch me…You cannot even find me, Elemental Overlord."

"Physical attacks and projectiles are pointless, it seems…" Riku states without worrying about the illusionary trick, and then he decides to not go for an attack on the mannequin as he lifts his sword up horizontally and sets it aglow, casting a plain old beam of light towards the mannequin and her reflections. He moves it across the room, paying attention to which of the illusions cast a wide reflection and which one only reflects off of the dress. Once he determines that one…Riku realizes he can't really follow up with an attack.

"Hmmm…" Riku had to work his mind to try and figure out a work-around for the mannequin's powers, but he had to also balance this with the fact that the mannequin began to go on the offensive once her cover had been blown. "I see you are playing cautiously…Let us change that, Elemental Overlord." The mannequin then flutters her cloak in all directions once more, spinning the mirrors around before pointing them at Riku. It was then that Riku was forced to leap back as the mannequin launched one of the mirrors right at him, making it pierce through the ground in it's attempt to strike her foe.

"So she does have some offensive options…" Riku whispers as he performs a couple quick flips back to avoid more of the mirrors. But as he gets evasive he looks at the mannequin for a moment and notices something he hadn't until now. The way the cloak was being moved about was a little too precise with how the mirrors were being thrown around, and the way the cloaked moved occasionally made it seem as though an arm was lifting it up even though she supposedly had no body.

"…Ok, I think I'm starting to see what your little trick is, mannequin." Riku murmurs out as he lands on the ground at the entrance of the room, and finds the mirror all laid against the ground. But before Riku can take even one step forward, hundreds of mirrors rise up one atop of the other, creating a three-dimensional maze rather rapidly with Riku put at the entrance of it. Riku could hear more layers of the maze getting created with every passing second, and as Riku takes a breath in he feels the air get permanently thinner right away.

The intentions of the mannequin were quite clear at that point, in that she was hoping to deprive Riku of oxygen before he ever escape this unbreakable maze. _"Well, I'll give her points for applying her powers in a clever manner…But she's doing this on the assumption that I plan to get to the end of her little maze…" _Riku thinks to himself to conserve his breath, following up by holding his katana in front of his body and breaking his connection to the light element in the process.

Once his sword was back to normal, he quickly focused on the darkness element and allowed it to wrap around his body, creating a thick veil that did little to change Riku's appearance besides give him yellow eyes and a darker shade of hair. His sword temporarily vanished, but that was fine with him, as he just needed the power of the element and not a weapon to focus the energy through. While keeping a steady enough breath to avoid running out of air, Riku bent forward and slammed both of his darkness-borne claws against the floor of the maze, seeping out mass quantities of darkness into a vortex that rapidly spawns darkness across the atmosphere of the maze.

The mannequin floats high above the throne, looking on at the gigantic maze of crystal mirror she made and noticing them becoming blacker with each passing second. "You cannot break through the maze with sheer force…No matter how much light or darkness you spread." The mannequin murmurs out, unable to comprehend the intention behind Riku's move. As Riku stands at the entrance of the maze, his eyes light up, allowing him to see things via the darkness he spreads.

While he was laying his hands against the vortex of darkness below him, he focuses on a pair of dark claws that he managed to send through the shadow, maneuvering them through the very tiny slits underneath all of the crystal walls in the maze until he makes it to the other side, at which point the claws reveal an eye on each palm that look up at the mannequin, and through Riku's sight he sees her in a dark, inverted manner.

"Game over, mannequin…" Riku murmurs before he sends a pulsation of darkness through the vortex to command the claw to act, making them lift out of the ground and slowly rise up towards the mannequin, with the claws splitting into multiple limbs before they reach the mannequin, at which point the truth about it's lack of body is revealed as without applying heavy physical force Riku commands the claws to wrap themselves around the mannequin's form, revealing a feminine shape disguised by a series of mirrors that reflect light in such a way that it camouflages the body.

The face of the mannequin visibly grimaces in pain with the claws tightening around her body, but she can't do anything to stop Riku from performing his next move. With a sharp twist of the claws around the mannequin's figure, Riku applies a powerful grip to the mannequin's body and breaks her innards entirely. For a mannequin, this is not enough to end her life, but it does break her concentration enough on the maze to make every crystal mirror shatter apart instantly, with the darkness Riku spread dissolving towards the ground a moment afterwards.

Through the darkness, Riku's eyes glow brightly, with the mannequin looking at them as he lets go of her now surprisingly bleeding body and floats down onto the ground, dropping to her knees as her limp arms fall beside her. Riku slowly walks forward and catches his breath after escaping the maze, sticking to his Dark Form as he approaches the mannequin. Even with all that had been done to her body, the mannequin's expression was unchanged and she was able to state to Riku "…It seems…I was not a worthwhile shield after all…"

"All I had to do was pay attention and realize where you body was. If attacking with physical force causes recoil and projectiles cause them to be launched back at me, then my only choice was to grab your body and crush it…I would normally not perform such a cruel act, but only a mannequin like you could take it and survive. Now enough games, you will tell me where Cryxis is." Riku, after explaining how he beat the mannequin, calmly demands the presence of her master. But she says calmly to him "He will never see you, Elemental Overlord…That much I am certain of."

"That…is not your decision to make, my foolish little puppet." After a moment of silence, both Riku and the mannequin are surprised by the sound of a deep, tired voice. The voice carried an incredible presence, as Riku felt a shiver through his body even before he looked up to see who the voice belonged to. Slowly approaching the area in front of the throne is a gigantic being wearing an exoskeleton of pure crystal, with a disjointed king's helmet covering his entire face and his bulky gauntlets and grieves suggesting a powerful figure lied behind it. Behind the man was a tattered black cape that has seen many conflicts.

The mannequin looked back at the man and said in a surprised tone "L-Lord Cryxis! Forgive me…I have failed you for the first time…" The moment Cryxis stood beside the mannequin, he extended his right hand out and tightly grabbed onto her head, using all four fingers to apply enough force to crush the skull, making the head crack to reveal a blank, featureless face for but a moment before Cryxis lets go and throws the body forward as it converts into the statue that all the other mannequins have been based on so far.

Even though it was just a mannequin, the sheer brutality of how Cryxis killed it horrified Riku, but he knew that he shouldn't have expected anything less from the man considering who he really is. Cryxis then thrust his right hand out and unleashed a burst of energy that is enough to shatter the mannequin into tiny shards, saying in a callously manner "That was your last failure…imperfect reflection." Cryxis then turned towards Riku and slowly sat himself down on his throne, laying both of his hands atop the arms before remarking "So…You have finally arrived, Elemental Overlord. As expected, my little lure managed to snag your attention."

Riku put on a brave smirk before asking of the man "What do you mean by 'lure'?" "I'm sure you have many questions…But I do not care. Your only purpose here in my domain is to perish." Cryxis coldly remarks, to which Riku says to him "I'm quite used to villains trying to kill me for reasons I don't quite understand…But you're the first villain I've fought who has hidden his true face behind a mask. I know who you really are, 'Cryxis'."

This makes Cryxis pause, with him giving a rather humored chuckle a moment later before he remarks "Believe it or not, I am not surprised that you know who I really am. I have seen you before, Elemental Overlord…Even if that point of time has not yet passed." Riku looked puzzled by that remark, and as he lifted his eyebrows he stated "How can that be?" "As I said before, I do not care about your inquiries, child. You are not worthy to know the truth." Cryxis responds with crude bluntness.

"Of course. It is in your nature to look down on all those who aren't the one you love…the one whose face was reflected on that last mannequin." Riku states with a rather piercing glare at his foe, and Cryxis states to him after a momentary pause "…So you saw her face as well? As the Phoenix of Destruction, your connection to her only makes sense…" Riku then raised his eyebrows in surprise and told the man "Hold on a second…What did you call me? I've heard of that title before, but that's not what I am."

"SILENCE!" Cryxis suddenly exclaimed with the utmost rage in his voice, and Riku's heart skipped a beat before the man went on to state with blunt contempt "I have waited eons for this day to arrive! I will not be tricked by your attempts at deception, child!" Cryxis then raised his right hand up and unleashed a shockwave of magic from the gauntlet, and after a seismic shock erupts through the ground Riku watches as a line of spikes rises up across the floor from the bottom of the throne's stairs towards him.

Riku leaps into the air to try and dodge the crystals, but Cryxis control allows him to increase the speed of the crystals and double their height so some of them scratch deeply into Riku's back as he tries to fly at Cryxis. Riku then drops from the sky, diverting his fall to the right so he isn't impaled by the spikes on the ground. He then rolls and rises to his feet, with blood seeping out from the wounds on his back afterwards. Riku glares at Cryxis, saying with his teeth grit in pain "Hehe…I can't afford to hold back against you. Even if you are fighting differently than normal…"

Without hesitation Riku summons forth his sword back into his hand and focuses intensely on the energies of light and darkness and Cryxis prepares to send more of the crystal spikes at his foe. But Riku quickly envelops himself in a chrysalis of light and dark energies, emerging quickly from the shell in his Chaos Form just as the crystal spikes erupt from underneath his body. Riku merely has to stand in place though, and the spikes grind away into nothingness at the presence of his power.

Cryxis then takes pause when it comes to using his powers, keeping his hand held up as he states "Now just what is this power of yours? I never saw you use this…" Riku swings both his fanged dagger and diamond katana out while spreading both pairs of wings, looking up at Cryxis and stating to him with all his confidence "I'm not the person you claim I am, Cryxis. But I will defeat you nevertheless! First things first though…I will break that helmet of yours off and make you admit who you truly are!" Cryxis lays his hand on the arm of his throne and exclaims "Impudent child! You are in my domain, and so long as I am omnipresent I will never allow you to lay even the tip of your sword on my armor!"

_Next Time: The End of…._


	4. The Survivor of a Dead Universe

Riku started his battle off against Cryxis by taking his diamond katana and running at the man. But without removing himself from his throne Cryxis raises his right hand and uses her powers to send out a shockwave of power at the boy, which causes two fangs of crystal to erupt from the ground and go straight for Riku's body, pinching together in such a way that Riku had to leap back in order to avoid suffering the piercing effect of the fangs' tips. Once back where he started Riku decided to try something else for the moment.

With a swing of her katana Riku sends out a sharp, compressed wave of light at Cryxis' helmet. But the man just lets the attack strike him dead-on, and the light shattered apart and fades from existence as he chuckles humorously at Riku's attempt to break his helmet. He then raised his other arm up and sent out another shockwave of power, this time aiming at the walls on both sides of the room. Riku feels a bit of rumbling in the ground before he feels a sharp pain across the side of his cheek.

He had been cut thanks to a small crystal spike that had been shot out from the right wall, and this led to Riku quickly summoning forth a barrier of light and darkness around him as Cryxis launched dozens of spikes from both sides of the room at him. At the same time Cryxis raised up the two crystal fangs he created and thrust them down at the front of Riku's shield, pushing all of his effort into trying to overwhelm the barrier with sparks grinding off of the tips of the fangs.

Riku could tell that his barrier was going to fall in due time, and thus while he had the benefit of protection to allow him to move he took his fanged dagger and grabbed onto the fabric of time and space, pulling open a dark rift a moment before his barrier vanished and slipping inside of it as it shattered and the two crystal fangs slammed into the floor to puncture it. Cryxis let the two fangs sink into the ground and took a rather deep sniff of the air, paying attention for Riku's particular scent for the very moment he reemerged.

Sure enough, Riku tried to perform a sneak attack behind Cryxis after immediately emerging from the dimensional rift. His diamond katana was pulled back, aimed to stab right through the side of Cryxis' helmet to break it off, but then Cryxis raises his right hand up and summons forth a hand of crystal in a mere second to grab Riku from the air inches away from his throne. Cryxis then swung the crystal hand so Riku was in front of him, but finds that the boy had dispelled his weapons for the moment.

But there was no reason to suspect anything from that considering how his powers worked, and as Riku was gripped tightly around the fingers of the crystal hand and had a pained look on his face Cryxis crunched his fingers together into a fist to apply even more pressure onto the teenage Overlord's body. A heavy crunching sound is heard coming from Riku's armor, with the pressure slowly putting cracks into it. But after a few seconds Cryxis lowered the pressure slightly, and Riku's head hung a bit in pain.

Riku, however, was exaggerating the pain, and had a smirk as he used his mind to command his two weapons that he had let go of before Cryxis had brought him in front of his body. Riku has the dagger and katana combine together and spin around, forming a drill of light and darkness that spirals right towards Cryxis' helmet. But the man felt the power exuding from the attack and slanted his body to the left to dodge it, keeping his full concentration on the crystal hand holding Riku in place.

However, a burst of power from Riku allows him to shattered the crystal hand and speed forward while flipping his combined weapons around so he can grab onto the handle of his katana while keeping the energy around the blades. He then compressed the energy into a thick but blunt sword and gets right in front of Cryxis before the man had time to react and brought the sword down right on top of Cryxis' helmet.

Cryxis grunted a bit in pain as his helmet is pressed against the skin underneath his body, and after Riku has applied enough pressure to cause the helmet to start visibly cracking he dispels his energy sword and pulls the dagger back into his left hand before flying back. Cyrxis retaliates by staying calm and thrusting his right arm out in order to bring forth a wave of crystals from the ground in front of him that pursue Riku until the moment he cuts the wave apart with a multidirectional swing of both blades that occurs in an instant. As the shards of this attack fall around him, Riku keeps his weapons held out and looks at Cryxis, noticing a couple shards from the fragmented helmet beginning to fall off, much to Cryxis surprise and annoyance.

Riku then stood upright and sheathed his weapons for the moment, looking upon Cryxis and telling him bluntly "I have damaged your helmet, just like I said I would." Cryxis growls a bit, but then says calmly to his foe "It seems I was not in the right of mind to underestimate your power at this point in time…" Riku folds his arms against the chest of his armor and puts on a serious expression before saying "Enough with the masquerade…It's time you take off that helmet and tell me just what's going on…Mad Titan, Thanos."

"…Hahaha…Hahaha! It has been a very, very long time since anyone has called me by that name and title. But instead of expressing fear at my true identity, you insult me with your nonchalance, Elemental Overlord. But I suppose I only have those accursed 'higher-ups' to blame for preparing their puppet as well as they did…" 'Cryxis' says before he raises his right gauntlet towards his helmet and uses his powers to send away the rest of the fragments, pulling away his hand afterwards to reveal his true face.

His head was alien-like, with mutated looking ears and a bumpy, square-ish chin. His skin was a dark ivory color and devoid of any hair, but it had quite a number of wrinkles spread about. His black eyes and piercing red pupils fit the personality of this madman perfectly, as did the subtle grin he gave towards Riku now that he had dropped his masquerade. Now that the truth had been confirmed, Riku could only say towards his foe "I knew it…There is no one else it could have been."

"It is no surprise that you pieced together my true identity, Elemental Overlord. But I suppose you believe that will help you defeat me?" Thanos says confidently to his foe as he leans back against his throne and lays his gauntlets back down on the arms of the throne. "I can't say for certain that I'm going to win…I know how frighteningly powerful you are. But I have to know just one thing before we continue…Why do you mistake me for the being called the Phoenix of Destruction?"

"Are you truly ignorant of your own title? Or has the point in time not yet crossed when you earn that name? Considering this moment in time will soon cease to exist, I suppose there is no harm in letting you know how you single-handedly caused the end of the universe I was born in and brought ruin to the only person I ever loved!" Thanos' grip on his throne angrily tightened at the end of his lengthy response, and Riku's eyes widened for a brief moment before he firmly stared at the Mad Titan and said "…Very well, tell me what you need to."

"_It all started on one day like any other. The universe, nay, the multiverse, was recovering from the abhorrent machinations of the Beyonder and his Incursions…After all that had happened, I was ready to resume my search for that ill-bred spawn of mine, but little did I or anyone else know that the worst was yet to come for our universe. The first omen for the universe was when the very fabric of time and space opened up in the form of a far-reaching gap, and through it came two figures._

_One was a female with long blonde hair, but it is so long ago that I cannot remember the details besides that. Pursuing her was a human male whose rage was so immense that he emerged from the gap covered in an aura of destructive fire that was shaped like the immortal Phoenix. Many figures both Terran and otherworldly noticed the presence of these two strange figures, but the gap that they emerged from was sealed up before I could analyze just where they came from. _

_After a brief scuffle, the female flew away to Earth for sanctuary, but the boy quickly followed. Curious to know just what was up with the two, I set up more than a fair share of cameras within the microbes of the Earth's atmosphere, making them invisible to all but the most aware of eyes. But I never again saw the female, instead hearing only claims from the boy that the heroes of Earth were hiding her from his sight. _

_What I did end up seeing, however, was something of a shock to me. The boy lashed out in anger against the Terran heroes, controlling all elements from fire to plant life in his crusade to seek out the destruction of this single female. He took on all the Earth could throw at him, surviving their strongest warriors both 'good' and 'evil' and causing such wide-spread destruction that the planet eventually crumbled upon itself, ending all life there forever. _

_At first I did not so much as blink at the loss of the planet Earth, as it and her warriors had been nothing but a thorn in my side for so long…But the boy's rampage did not end with just the Earth. He quickly assaulted the realm of Asgard, chasing the God of Thunder to the doors of the palace, where he was faced with the combined might of all of Asgard's greatest warriors, including the Skyfather Odin himself. And I watched in awe as even against such impossible odds, the boy's rage combined with his strange powers allowed him to conquer all of Asgard, leaving it nothing more than ruins bathed in his furious flames._

_I had personally faced Odin in battle during my many conquests, and he is one of the few people in that universe that could make me take pause with his strength…And yet now he was dead, slaughtered by a human whose identity I did not know and powers I could not comprehend. For the first time in my terrible, brutish existence…I felt fear. With Asgard and the Earth down, the armies across many worlds across many galaxies gathered together, unifying to take down a common foe._

_I had planned to join them in secret, but before I could do anything I was whisked away from the mortal plain and brought to the realm of the one I loved most in the world, Lady Death herself. At first I was puzzled as to why she brought me to her realm, but she merely gestured towards a portal she had set up that allowed me to see the battle between the universal army and the boy. It was a slaughter unlike anything I had ever witnessed. Even the strongest they had to offer, like the Gladiator and Silver Surfer, fell to the boy's power. _

_I looked at Lady Death, seeking answers as to how to stop this madness once and for all, and what did she give me as he response? She handed me the Infinity Gauntlet, rebuilt completely with all six gems placed in it, and whispered to me the two words that has haunted me ever since… 'Please, run'. I could hear the raw fear in her voice, and it was clear that something about this whole situation disturbed. I begged her, pleading with her to tell me just what was truly wrong about this._

_She then showed me the truth about this brutal slaughter, revealing to me the shadowy figures of three powerful beings that exist in a realm of white. I realized that they were the puppet-masters behind the boy's appearance here, and that they were planning on using him to erase the existence of our universe. This particular fact became ever clearer when I watched the boy again, where the abstract beings of the universe sans Lady Death went to confront him for all the havoc he was bringing across the universe._

_Galactus, Eternity, even The Living Tribunal appeared to put an end to this madness…But the boy had one final trick up his sleeve. Using an object I could not identify, he unleashed a space-time continuum rending series of shockwaves that lashed out against the abstract beings, exploiting their creations being tied to the Big Bang itself to reverse their time until they were unborn from existence. These very shockwaves were going to eventually reach even Lady Death's realm, and in the fact of my disbelieving rage Lady Death forced the Infinity Gauntlet to activate._

_I was protected by a force field created from the Time Gem, and the moment the shockwave struck Death's Realm I was flung through a wormhole in time and space, with Lady Death unaffected by the shockwave due to being the one true eternal concept that existed even before the Big Bang. I was helplessly flung through time and space, watching as the future unfolded for what remained of my universe…And it was not long after I was sent away that I witnessed the decisive moment that would shape my hatred forever._

_Before my eyes, Lady Death was shattered apart by the 'higher-ups', split into thousands of beings that all represent what she did in their own ways, but none of them had a similar appearance to one another. That was the last thing I saw before my vision went black and felt myself being torn apart by my emergence out of the wormhole. _

_After that, I became amnesiac, landing on a strange world of crystal beings and eventually becoming perceived as their god, 'Cryxis'. I enjoyed my time as their ruler even without my memories, but eventually the shackles came undone, and in my rage I committed planetary genocide against those who worshipped me. My rage did not end there, but I quickly came to realize what had happened to me. The Infinity Gauntlet was gone, erased from existence after it's final use…The woman I loved, the only thing that gave my life purpose, was broken apart and scattered across the universe…And I was alone, the last survivor of a marvelous universe…_

_I could've easily fallen into despair…But there was one image burning in my mind that stopped me from doing so. And that was the boy that single-handedly brought ruin to my universe. My hatred for him knew no bounds, and I knew that I could not rest until I eventually brought an end to his existence."_

Thanos' story thus came to a rather swift end, and Riku found himself with a lot of answers yet as usual feeling as even more questions emerged within his mind. The biggest thing that was on his mind however was the matter of the destruction of the Marvel Universe, and how this bit of news explained how Takashi and Sodenko could not see through Thanos' masquerade. "Everything…was removed from existence…?" Riku murmured out in confusion, and Thanos was quick to explain "You would think it'd be that simple…But no, it isn't."

"The 'higher-ups' used their powers to place the concepts of the Marvel Universe into many minds on your planet Earth, making sure they'd continue to exist in the form of comic books, and the information would thus later be implanted into the mind of the reincarnated Elemental Overlord." Thanos' mentioning of that last detail was the most surprising thing for Riku, who widened his eyes and exclaimed "How do you know about that?!"

"I know everything there is to know about your legacy, Elemental Overlord! I have not spent this immortal life of mine standing idly by waiting for something to happen! I have done research on everything I could in this new universe, trying my damnedest to figure out how the Elemental Overlord appeared and just what the 'higher-ups' were truly capable of! I eventually determined that the Elemental Overlord was sent from the future, but I still could not determine what his name was and just who the female was that he pursued.

But in the process of determining all this, I stuck to my identity of 'Cryxis' and discovered that Lady Death left me one final gift…Because of her discovery of the 'higher-ups', she was able to implant within me the ability to avoid being detected by them. With that, in combination with the knowledge I gained on that world of crystal, I began to craft a two-fold plan in order to save the one I loved…Using these powers to craft a castle, I would travel the universe in search of the fragments of Lady Death, capturing them with a combination of crystal and arcane magic and storing them away. Once I acquire all the fragments, I will recreate Lady Death in her entirety.

But if it took me too long to accomplish this task, then I would initiate plan B. I could never determine when in time the Elemental Overlord would be sent back to the past, so I decided I would crystallize worlds in an attempt to grab his attention and lure him right towards me, since Lady Death's final gift meant he would never detect my life energy. I created mannequins to kill anyone that wasn't the Elemental Overlord, culminating in this moment where the one I hate above all else has finally made his presence known to me…And I have gotten you to appear before the moment where you are taken away to the past.

I exist outside of time and space, a contradiction that cannot be removed…As such, using my knowledge of the multiverse as a guideline, I know for certain that all I have to do to undo everything is to end your life, and Lady Death shall be returned to me for good!"

"…Thanos, just how long have you been wandering the universe in search of Death's fragments?" Riku inquires after a very long and somewhat concerned pause. "It has been at least ten million years since the universe I was from was brought to an end, but I have been scouring the universe for a million years." Thanos replied in a rather tired voice, and as Riku can only stare at him in agape awe he says "I am persistent…I can never be stopped! Not by those accursed 'higher-ups', and especially not by their damned puppet!"

"Thanos, if you think I'm the end game to your little revenge scheme, then you're sorely mistaken! I know my title, and it's not the Phoenix of Destruction! You have the wrong person!" Riku tries to make Thanos see reasoning, but the Mad Titan was too far gone as he exclaimed in a moment of absolute rage "ENOUGH! I've answered enough of your questions! In fact, I have been far too merciful towards the one I hate!" Thanos grips tightly on the arms of his throne, shattering them apart before rising up onto his feet.

Riku quickly drew his weapons again with a frightened expression on his face, and Thanos raised his right gauntlet before his face while stating with a menacing scowl "Age has not weakened me! I am still the Mad Titan Thanos, the destroyer of a thousand galaxies, the harbinger of the end times, and the living avatar of Death herself! And now, Elemental Overlord, face the one thing in this universe that can never die, and that is my wrath!" Thanos runs straight at Riku without hesitation, the brutish titan setting his gauntlets aglow with deathly purple energy as Riku prepares to defend himself.

But Thanos does not go for an attack on Riku's chest or limbs, instead swinging his open right hand out and grabbing the boy by the head, immediately slamming his body so hard against the ground that he creates an indent. Thanos doesn't stop there though, as he runs forward while dragging Riku through the floor, grinding up the crystals for a few seconds and causing Riku's body to jerk around until Thanos decides to lift and throw him forward, unleashing a shockwave from his gauntlet a mere second later to command the crystals to rise up in a wall filled with spikes that would be sharp enough to pierce through Riku's armor.

However, now that Riku was free from Thanos' grasp, he quickly recovers and pulls his arms close to his gut before letting out a powerful roar that heralds him unleashing an incredible aura of light and darkness around his body as bright and burning as a solar flare, and the raw strength of his aura disintegrates all the crystal spikes behind him. Riku takes a moment to swing his arms out while looking down at Thanos, exclaiming to him "Listen to me! I wish to stop the 'higher-ups' as well! We don't have to fight!"

"Do not attempt to deceive me with your lies, Elemental Overlord!" Thanos quickly exclaims before he fires off a high-powered energy blast from his right gauntlet. The energy blast manages to break right through Riku's aura and strike him hard in the chest, putting cracks in the armor and making his aura burst apart before he's knocked back into the crystal wall, which causes his head to recoil forward in pain. Riku quickly then slams his right fist against the wall to shatter it, gritting his teeth as he lands on the ground and watches Thanos charge right at him again.

"Fine then…" Riku murmurs out with a quick shake of his head, and then he dispels his weapons and raises both of his hands up to take all of the energy in his aura and fire off a pulse of light and darkness against Thanos' chest as he tries to attack with both of his fists. The pulse puts a dent in Thanos' crystal armor and blows him back quite a few feet, the ripple from the attack putting a thin crack in the ground in the process. Riku then swings both of his arms out beside his hips and clenches his fists tightly, exclaiming to Thanos as the man lands on the ground "I won't try to reason with you anymore. Time for you to face every last ounce of my power, Thanos!"

Thus, for the first time since acquiring the form, Riku lets out a roar of might and reaches into the deepest recesses of his control over light and darkness. His power erupts, breaking through the limitations he had placed on himself all throughout his journey in order to reach 100% of his Chaos Form's power. His power tore apart the floor below him, disintegrating the shards that flew across the sky while his wings ignited with holy and demonic flames and his glowed brightly with white and black light. Once his power-up was at an end, Riku glared at Thanos and exclaimed in an echoing voice "This is 100%! If you want to kill me, you'll have to try your damnedest!"

"Gladly!" Thanos exclaims before he runs right at Riku. Riku opts to fly right at his foe while drawing his right fist back with all of his might, throwing out a punch that collides with Thanos' own strength. As the two's strength meets at the center of the throne room, a dome of energy begins to expand outward as the two refuse to budge from where they stand, with Riku's fist grinding against Thanos' gauntlet and beginning to break it apart before the energy dome bursts apart and sends both fighters reeling back.

Riku quickly recovers as he skids along the ground and rapidly thrusts his hands forward, firing off a heavy multitude of light and dark blasts that home-in on Thanos' body and assault him mercilessly. Smoke comes out from the energy blasts, but Thanos quickly charges through it unscathed and roars as he holds his right hand out and uses his crystal controlling powers to send off a wave of crystal at Riku. Riku leaps over it and pulls both of his hands off to the side of his body, cupping them while quickly forming a gigantic sphere of light and dark flames between both palms.

As Thanos leaps towards him, Riku thrusts both hands out and fires off a body-sized beam of white and black fire, but Thanos pushes through it with only minimal scarring to his face and grabs Riku by the neck before keeping his momentum up and slamming him against a wall to create a heavy indent. Thanos clutches his hand around the neck tightly to try and crush it, but Riku retaliates against this by taking his right fist and thrusting it really hard into the dent he created in Thanos' armor, breaking through it and striking the chest with enough force to wind the man.

A shockwave of chaos energy goes off after the punch, and Thanos' grip is loosened enough that Riku is able to quickly summon his dagger and cut a gash in the fabric of the world in front of him so he can slip into the realm of darkness before Thanos is able to grab onto his neck again. The Mad Titan instead ends up slamming his open hand against the human shaped indent and cracking it, but he is also hasty in grabbing onto the crystal and ripping out a large chunk that he uses as a shield the moment he turns around and sees Riku firing off a lashing wave of energy upon emerging from the realm of darkness.

The shield absorbs the brunt of the attack with the rest of the energy hitting the shoulders of Thanos' armor and putting a cut through them. Thanos then throws the shield away and tightly clenches his right fist as he sees Riku floating mid-air, utilizing the crystals on the ground in order to quickly summon forth a large-scale dome around his body. To be safe, Thanos puts three more layers of thickened crystal around the dome to further inconvenience him while he took his left hand and charged his raw energy into the full length of the gauntlet.

A series of slices rips right through the crystal domes like an unstoppable whirlwind, culminating in Riku bring down his katana through the center of the dome in order to dismantle the domes into nothing more than shards, landing on the ground right as Thanos was beginning to charge straight at him. The Mad Titan throws a heavy punch into Riku's chest with his energy empowered gauntlet, and even though Riku tries to brace himself against the ground he finds himself giving in to Thanos' ludicrous strength as his armor gains a lot of cracks and after a momentary thrust of his head forward from recoil Riku's body is launched through the air as a burst of energy erupts from the back of his armor.

Once he was done being launched, Riku lays one hand against his chest and smirks a bit, glaring at the grounded Thanos before he swings both of his arms out and sets them aglow with pitch black and white flames. He then flies forward, moving so quickly that his body leaves behind a few afterimages and manages to make Thanos lose sight of him. Using the massive speed difference between him and his foe to his advantage, Riku uses his empowered fists to perform a quick punch across the front of Thanos' armor, leaving behind a streak of white as the echoes of Riku's blows resounds through the air.

Thanos is then swiftly struck hard with three more punches in the span of a second, as Riku's light speed movements are barely calculable even to the Mad Titan. More streaks appear across Thanos' armor from the blows, with cracks forming from the strength that Riku applies to his punches, but his assault would come to an end as Thanos predicts where Riku would appear after three more seconds and angrily thrusts his right hand out before Riku can throw out another punch.

He manages to catch Riku by his right arm the moment he attempts to throw a punch out, breaking him out of his speed at the cost of having to deal with the momentum still, which pushes him back a few feet but puts Riku at his mercy. Riku widened his eyes in surprise at Thanos predicting his movements, but then the Mad Titan applied a very pressured grip to his arm in order to break through the armor and put a couple cracks into the bones. Riku grit his teeth a bit in pain, but fought against it in order to fight against Thanos' power.

With his other hand, Riku focuses energy into two of his fingers and lifts them up, firing two thin beams at Thanos' eyes and immediately causing a blast to emerge from each one as Thanos recoils his head back and roars in pain for a few seconds, being forced to let go of Riku in order to raise both hands against his burning face while he also staggers back. Riku falls down, but quickly uses his powers to levitate himself off the ground a bit and then flipping back upright.

He then used his speed to appear before Thanos in an instance and throw a punch at the chest plate of his armor, breaking it apart further before immediately going for a barrage of blows against the bare, muscular chest, making sure to push as much energy into his fists so shockwave erupt across Thanos' bones and muscles in an attempt to rupture then. But as an Eternal, Thanos' durability was incredible, and Riku's bare-fisted approach could only put a few cracks into his ribcage before the Mad Titan recovers from being blinded and immediately retaliates.

His retaliation comes in the form of swinging both of his hands down in an angered clap to try and break Riku's skull, but the boy bends down and draws his katana while the clap creates a shockwave. While swinging his sword up in an arc to cut diagonally through Thanos' chest, Riku is surprised when Thanos' clap had a second purpose in summoning forth a few crystals, two of which act as limbs that grab Riku by his elbows and holds him in the pose created by the aftermath of his sword swing while the other two encase his legs.

Thanos then takes great pleasure in using his fists to damage Riku's body in different but precise locations. One punch goes for the underside of Riku's right arm, using the damage he inflicted earlier in order to fully break the bones in the arm. Riku continues to grit his teeth in pain, but the blow ricocheted a shockwave of agony through his muscles and nerves that leads to his heart skipping a couple beats. While stunned by this pain in his heart Riku is grabbed around the head by Thanos' gigantic hand, and the Mad Titan pulls on it with such a quick effort that Riku feels some of the muscles in his neck snap a bit.

This causes Riku to break into a bit of a sweat, and Thanos immediately raises his other hand into the air and goes to punch down on his foe's back with enough force to completely shatter his spine. But it was around then that impatience got the better of Takashi, and after staying idly by in his realm he forced open a gash and fired off a blast of darkness from his mouth large enough to completely overwhelm Thanos' upper body and do no harm to his friend Riku. Thanos was forced to halt his advance and raise both of his hands to push back the darkness, growling in an annoyed tone at this sudden interference by this unknown entity.

But Takashi's distraction, even though it did little damage to Thanos' body, gave Riku enough time to unleash a burst of energy strong enough to obliterate all the crystals keeping him held down. Fighting through the pain of his broken bones, Riku lifted himself up and thrust his diamond katana forward while grasping the handle with both hands, absorbing Takashi's energies into the blade while summoning light to combine with them. With all of this power wielded with his katana, Riku is able to stab right through the center of Thanos' chest.

Thanos convulses in pain, and Riku takes this chance to exclaim "RAAAAAAAAAGH!" while putting on a rather bold expression and pushing forward with his katana a little more to release the energy gathered within his katana to blast through the back of Thanos' body and armor, the spurt of light and darkness erupting from behind Thanos obliterating a large chunk of the floor at the same time and leaving the flesh in his back bloody and burned. Riku pulls his sword out of Thanos' body and shakes the purple blood off the blade, then uses his speed to getaway before Thanos can attack.

The Mad Titan attempts to wipeout Riku with a blast of raw energy from his right hand, but only succeeds in putting a large hole in the floor. Riku appears behind Thanos, but as the man turns around to try and counter the oncoming attack Riku brings his katana down diagonally through Thanos' armor. The armor is sliced clean through along with Thanos' skin, making blood gush out from his wound. Riku doesn't waste any time in then thrusting his left hand out and slamming it against Thanos' chest.

With all of his strength, Riku summons forth darkness and fires it off in a massive burst that engulfs Thanos in a sphere for a brief moment before launching him towards his throne. Thanos slams back first against the front of the throne and falls against the floor, sitting down with his arms being forcibly put up on the arms of his throne and leaving Thanos in a partially undignified slouch. Riku then allowed his right arm to limp down beside him as he slouched slightly, maintaining the same glow in his eyes and on his wings while sweating and exclaiming to Thanos "Do you realize now that I'm not the Phoenix of Destruction?!"

Thanos lifts his head up slightly and scowls at Riku, and the boy tells him "The only reason I even came to this castle was to restore Pop Star after you crystallized it! I don't give a damn about your goal to collect the fragments of Death." When Thanos hears that particular bit from Riku regarding Pop Star, he subtly grins before he lifts his head up and tries to look weak, saying to his foe "I-Is that truly all you desire, Elemental Overlord? Hehehe…You will never get what you want if you end my life."

Riku paused for a moment upon hearing this, suspecting that Thanos was trying to trick him but nevertheless curious to know what he was going to say. "…Go on." Riku remarks, and Thanos explains to him "In the room where I have captured all the fragments of Death there exists a passage leading to the very core of this castle. There you will find a device that will reverse the effects of my transmogrification on that pitiful world. I will do nothing to impede you if you wish to just take care of your business…"

Riku raised an eyebrow at that response, but after looking at Thanos' condition a little more he realized that even if the Mad Titan was lying to him, he could easily escape his trap and return to this area to finish Thanos off. "…I will be right back." Riku says hesitantly before he lifts himself up to the best of his ability, lowering the strength of his Chaos Form to the halfway point and removing the effects on his eyes and wings before turning around and beginning to walk out of the throne room.

Once Thanos was assured that Riku was far enough away, he quietly laughed and began to lift himself up onto his throne. Once he sat firmly in place, the arms of his chair attach themselves to his gauntlets while the man states "Destructive you may be, Elemental Overlord…But your intelligence has it's limits, though that says little as all are fools before me." Behind Thanos, the organic ruby begins to pulsate wildly as the Mad Titan wears a sadistic grin on his face.

Meanwhile, Riku cautiously walks through the halls of the castle while saying to Takashi "Thanks for your assistance back there…But please be careful next time, I don't want you getting hurt." _"I couldn't let him get that attack off on your spine…That Thanos person is a truly brutish man, but I am glad to know that his advantage against the 'higher-ups' does not help him against you. Even so, should you really leave him back there for now?" _Takashi responds, and Riku admits to him "I don't know…Truth be told, while Thanos is an incredibly dangerous man, I doubt he has actually killed a single person in the last million years…"

"_How? From the way he described things, he's a man who does nothing but destroy…" _Sodenko pondered, and Riku states "What would be the point? All he ever wanted to do was appease Death…Without her around, what purpose would there be in killing even a single soul, no matter how much it pained him not to do so?" _"Then this castle is nothing more than a self-imposed prison…" _Takashi states without an ounce of pity towards the Mad Titan.

"Then that was his decision to make." Riku says bluntly, then all of a sudden he feels the entire castle tremble madly. Riku quickly turns himself around and states "I knew he was up to something!" He quickly lifts himself up and flies back to try and stop Thanos, but before he can even make it back to the passage leading to the throne room he's blocked off by some very durable silver crystal fangs shooting down through the ceiling. Riku knew in his current condition that it wasn't worth the risk to try and break through the crystals, especially since they were being summoned at a rapid rate.

As a bestial roar filled the corridors, Riku turned around and made his way back the way he came, flying faster than the silver fangs can be summoned until he reaches the windows, at which point he flies out into space before the way out was sealed off. Flying at light speed towards the front of the castle, Riku quickly turns around and notices how parts of the castle were beginning to transform. The rocky underside shattered apart as feet grew outward, with legs growing perfectly as well to connect them to the rest of the castle. The crystals growing had a draconic set of scales on them, making it fit in with the door at the front.

Two sets of arms form from the sides of the castle, each one having five very sharp claws. The main shape of the castle compresses into a more rounded form, and two pairs of dragon wings spread out from the back, each one being roughly half the size of the castle itself. Finally, the roof of the castle unfurls out into a serpentine head at the front of the castle's top. The innards of the head glow bright red like the "organic jewel", and as Riku stares at this planet-sized crystal dragon from afar he remarks while gritting his teeth and sweating a bit "The castle was alive all along…"

Through the mouth of this giant dragon, Thanos' voice can be heard booming through the depths of space, and he exclaims to Riku "You were a fool to assume that I did not have another trick up my sleeve. As I told you…My rage is eternal, my hatred of you and the 'higher-ups' will drive me to do whatever it necessary, even if that means tearing apart the very heavens with this dragon's claws! But first, I shall deal with you forever, Phoenix of Destruction!" With the planetary beast letting out a roar that pushes back even the very stars, Riku could only note to himself that he was now facing an opponent that was truly, truly beyond his scale and power, and he did not know just what to do next…

_Next Time: Loyalty_


	5. Clash of Planetary Forces

It did not serve as a good omen for Riku's state of affairs when the first thing that happened upon coming face-to-face with Thanos' planet-sized crystal dragon was that his life began to flash before his eyes. Even so, Riku raised his katana and grit his teeth through the pain of his broken bones before remarking as the dragon's roar shook the very depths of space "Heh…I'm not dying yet, so there's no need to plague me with those memories no matter how good those times were…" _"Riku, no, this is insane! You can't take on something like this after that madman weakened you!"_ Takashi exclaims urgently.

Riku ignores the dragon's warning and powers-up, but finds that he can not achieve the full strength of his Chaos Form again due to the damage he's received. Nevertheless, he was bathed in a thick aura of light and darkness that showed that he still had a lot of strength left within him. With katana pointed at the dragon, he told the two dragons "I have to fight. Cause if I don't stop Thanos, who will?" _"Someone stronger than you can! This is tantamount to suicide if you go through with this!" _Takashi says to his stubborn friend.

"…Don't worry about me." Riku asks of the black dragon, but Takashi exclaims _"Request denied! Just run!" _But the crystal dragon Riku faced would soon show why escape wasn't an option as it closed the rather large gap between the two of them in two seconds, showing how fast it was in spite of it's gargantuan size. As the planetary monstrosity floated before Riku, it swung it's upper right claw down towards the boy while Thanos roared through the mouth "Perish for your impudence!"

Riku could feel the pressure coming from the dragon's claw as it moved through space, but stayed his ground for a moment while he judges just how fast the thing could move it's limbs. Compared to the speed of the body itself, the monstrous dragon could not attack as fast, which gave Riku the advantage as far as playing defensive goes as he was able to speed off through space past the width of the claw, appearing above it while he held his katana inside of its sheath and charged light energy within it.

Compressing the energy into a thin but sharp form, Riku draws his katana and fires off a very wide blade of light at the wrist of this dragon's claw. But though the light manages to slice into the top of the crystal claw, it only makes it a third of the way through before fading from view. Riku laments this failure, realizing that had he been at full power he would've managed to slice through the claw entirely. While he was distracted with his failure, Thanos took this chance to command the upper left claw to slash through space towards his relatively miniscule foe.

This time the pressure of his attack works against him as it was enough to alert Riku of the incoming slash and turn around while quickly opening a gash of darkness behind him with his dagger. He then successfully holds his katana out in front of him to act as his defense, and it was all thanks to the unbreakable sword that Riku was only sent rocketing back when the tip of the claw connected with his sword. But that was the reason the gash was formed, so that he could control where he'd be sent instead of being left to the mercy of the dragon's attacks.

But while his blade survived the attack capable of rending an entire world to nothing, a combination of wielding the sword with one hand and an improper attempt to brace himself led to recoil going through his arm, which ruptures a couple of his muscles and cracks a few bones. Riku was barely holding back the tears of pain at this point, but he had to focus on having the darkness direct him towards another point of space far away from the dragon and thus held back his emotions.

With the momentum being kept during this guidance, it only takes Riku twenty seconds before he's able to open up another gash with his mind and fly out thousands of miles behind the crystal dragon. Riku then breaks his flight by turning around, and with weapons held out beside himself he tries to come up with another way to strike the strangely immobile dragon. "It's just a dragon as big as Mercury…Don't start worrying yourself, Riku…" Riku keeps himself motivated with a little pep talk, even though he was not helping his case by comparing the size of the dragon to something familiar.

"_JUST RUN!" _Takashi exclaims again, literally straining his voice to demand Riku listen to him, but Riku shakes his head and exclaims "I can still fight! Just stop distracting me!" Suddenly though, Riku's advantage of sneaking up on the dragon is ruined by Thanos exclaiming "This whole body acts as my eye! I can see everything you are doing…You cannot escape my wrath no matter where you try to go!" The crystal dragon flaps it's wings and turns itself around, but as it moved the depths of space began to tremble due a high amount of raw energy exuding around it's four arms.

The energy was being directly offered to the dragon from Thanos' own body, and the Mad Titan wastes little time in having all four claws centered in front of the body so he can combine the energy together and unleash it all towards Riku. A bright gold funnel of energy spanning a hundred thousand miles of space is launched forward in an instant, and Riku only had time to react due to how long it took for the claws to be positioned. Even as he speeds to the right to do his best to avoid the attack, he is still consumed by the very edge of the funnel, which burns him and his armor with a frightening degree of power before he can escape.

Complete annihilation would have awaited Riku had he chosen to stay at the center of the blast, for not even his strongest shield would've protected him from the attack. However, now that he escaped the blast and was greatly weakened he couldn't keep up the act of bravery for very long and quietly remarked "Guess I…I'm being a pretty big fool here…" He lays one arm across the front of his armor and limply holds his katana up in the other one. His wings were barely touched, but that was the only thing that wasn't damaged.

The crystal dragon turned it's body towards Riku again and stretching it's claws out. From the palms of these claws grow spears as tall as the dragon itself, and after using the weightlessness of space to leave the spears floating the crystal dragon grabs onto the centers of them before pointing each one at Riku. The spears were then thrown without hesitation, each one thrown in such a way that Riku would have an incredibly difficult time avoiding them considering how his weakened body was now slower.

But even with the spears flying at him with such force that space once again trembled, Riku sheathed his katana and flew straight at them, his aura burning bright as a streak of light and darkness is left in his wake. He charged towards the first spear that was going straight at him and chose to land right on top of it, immediately breaking into a run as the spear spun around and Thanos commanded spikes to shoot up from around the surface of his attack.

Riku then drew out his sword and sliced apart any spikes that got in his way with rapid cuts, working against the pain in his body before he noticed that one of the spears was being redirected to collide with the one he was currently on. Riku thus slammed his katana into the surface of the spear and ran forward, grinding a crevice through the rotating crystal as the second spear collided with the first and grinded apart large chunks of the object as it made it's way towards Riku.

However, Riku leaps up towards the crystal and gets on top of that, picking up his speed a little bit while leaving the spear he's on to tear apart the first one. Riku sprints towards the very top of the spear while the last two try and impale him in-between from both sides of his body, but all he has to do is make a huge enough leap to get over them and they simply grind themselves to dust in a matter of seconds afterwards despite their size.

Riku then takes flight, but by the time he was past the spears Thanos had already positioned the gargantuan mouth of the dragon in such a way that it was able to immediately fire a blast of blue flames that caught Riku and sent him hurtling back through space while being rapidly damaged by the flames until he broke out by thrusting both of his arms out and exerting a lot of force from all parts of his body. But this left him burnt out of quite a bit of energy, and it was clear that it wouldn't take much more from Thanos' creation to end him.

Takashi had quite enough of Riku's bravado at that point and fought against his control over darkness in order to force open a rift of darkness large enough for his claw to come through and grab Riku into his realm for safety, but before even one finger of the claw can reach through Riku widens his eyes and exerts an incredible amount of pressure in the form of a barrier that holds Takashi's claw back. _"What the hell are you doing?!" _Takashi exclaims.

"_Thanos is a relentless man…If he learns that I have allies, he'll stop at nothing to slaughter them as well. I don't think even your Lord of Chaos fusion is enough to handle this giant dragon…" _Riku states through his mind, but then he moves the placement of the gash along with his body a few feet to the left, which placed himself before Sodenko and the chain that bound her to this realm. Without hesitation, Riku thought out with a hand held behind him _"No more waiting, Sodenko…You and your brother are free to go wherever you want in this universe…"_

With a simple exertion of his power, Riku sends off an invisible blast that shatters the chain of light entirely, but Sodenko could only float around in utter shock at what Riku was implying with his actions and words. _"Riku…You can't possibly die…Not after everything you've done…" "I let my guard down for just one moment, and Thanos used that to turn the situation into an advantage for himself…" _Riku explained, and as he notices the crystal dragon raising two of it's claws up to form a sword twice as large as it's entire being he smirks and remarks "Now go you two…And if you ever find my brother, tell him I'm thankful to him for creating me…"

Riku then snapped his fingers, shutting the gash behind him and making sure that no sound could reach his ears or mind. He then looked at the face of his demise and laughed while his body limped in the middle of this endless space, and Thanos proclaimed to him "I shall slay you with the very replica of the blade you used to bring ruin to my universe! In the name of Lady Death, you shall be the first life I've offered to her in a million years!" The sword was almost complete at that point, and Riku couldn't help but feel a little sense of awe when he looked up at it.

"If this was meant to be my destined death, then I must admit…It's not a terrible one, is it now?" Riku remarks rather calmly, keeping an accepting smile on his face as he waits for the sword to come down. _"ENOUGH!" _A booming combination of Takashi and Sodenko's voices erupts through the depths of space, and a planet sized gash is opened up behind Riku with a titanic dragon as big as the one Thanos made emerging from the dark dimension and immediately positioning itself above Riku with both of it's claws raised up in front of the path of the sword the crystal dragon was bringing down.

This small-planet sized dragon was a fusion of traits from both Sodenko and Takashi, with scales of white, grey and black spread across it's bottom from top to bottom as it wore black-white gradient armor with a distorted face consisting of pale dark purple eyes and a fanged mouth and loose grey chain mail that went from the waist to his feet. Held beside the chain mail was a dual-sided weapon with a triangular blade half as big as its owner's body on one side and a three-jeweled scepter on the other one.

As this fused dragon slams it's claws against the titanic blade, a thunderous shockwave ruptures space itself, with Riku barely withstanding being flung back by the pressure exuding from the clash. He then looks up as the dragon begins digging it's claws into the structure of Thanos' blade and exclaims with a disbelieving expression "W-What?! I told you both, the Lord of Chaos isn't enough to stop Thanos! You're just throwing your life away! You should have just run!" _"As we told you before, request denied! Besides, you're throwing your life away as well you idiot!" _The Lord of Chaos' voice was clearly being influenced by Sodenko's will at the moment, as the words chosen sounded more like something she'd bluntly say.

"Who are you?!" Thanos exclaims in disbelief through the mouth of the dragon as he finds his titanic sword being held back by this newcomer to the battle. _"We are Riku's allies combined into one! We are the Lord of Chaos, the one who will give him the chance he needs to end you, Thanos!" _The dragon exclaims with all of his might, and with a tightening grip of his claws he spreads his energy through the crystal sword and cracks it to the point that it only takes one pull from both claws to rip the blade apart effortlessly.

Riku watched in awe beneath the body of his ally as the sword was destroyed and the fragments were sent out across space. The Lord of Chaos then took advantage of Thanos' surprise to take it's right claw and pierce it right into the center of the crystal dragon's body, puncturing through to the back without finding anything close to a core inside. But it was then that Thanos exclaims "You will not even lay a finger on her fragments, beast! I shall put you down for your insolence!"

With the crystal dragon unfazed by the Lord of Chaos' attack, it quickly took it's own claw out and raised it up to try and go for his foe's neck, but the Lord of Chaos pulled its' limb out and flew back to avoid the attempt to suffocate him. _"Riku! Hide in the dark dimension…We're not going to hold anything back here!" _The Lord of Chaos mentally projects to their friend, and Riku stares up at him and admits after a momentary chuckle _"Maybe…Maybe you two can stop him…Fine, I'll retreat for now…" _

The Lord of Chaos thus opens a small enough rift with but a thought, and Riku slips into it to watch from the darkness. Now that Riku was safe and out of the way, the Lord of Chaos exclaimed to Thanos _"In all of existence, the Lord of Chaos has never used all of his power against a foe…Prepare yourself Thanos, to witness the resolve we have!" _Stretching all of his limbs out to the absolute he could, the Lord of Chaos lets out a bellowing roar and immediately jumps towards the pinnacle of his power.

Shockwaves of raw energy spread across out for miles of space, and the darkness contorts around his body while the lights of the stars many light-years away glow brighter as though they were being attracted to the gravitational pull created by the Lord of Chaos' body. When the mighty dragon had finished powering-up, it's wings were burning bright with flames much like what happened with Riku's Chaos Form at full strength, and the eyes burned as well as the Lord of Chaos lowered his head and looked at Thanos' crystal dragon ready to fight.

"You think this scares me? No warrior or god can make me show fear in battle! I have slain abstracts, brought ruin to half the universe…You won't make me bend to your will!" Thanos' exclaims before opening the mouth of his dragon and creating a sphere of energy within it, and he fires off a blast of raw energy towards his foe. The Lord of Chaos, however, holds his right claw up and lets the energy impact with the palm, but not before pushing himself forward through space towards the originator of the attack. The energy is pushed back quickly towards his foe, with the Lord of Chaos using one quick thrust of his claw to unleash a blast of Chaos energy at the last moment, a mile before reaching the crystal dragon.

What this results in is the energy from the dragon being thrown back into the head, and combined with the Chaos energy it only takes a few seconds for glowing cracks to spread out across the head and neck before they both shatter into nothingness. _"U-Unbelievable…" _Riku states in disbelief from afar, but the Lord of Chaos floated back and knew that it was not going to be that simple. Sure enough, the top of the crystal dragon's body bulges out a mere second before another head and neck comes out to replace the old.

But as the regeneration process happened, Thanos commanded the crystal dragon to raise both of it's claws up and go forward to slash his foe in a cross manner, but the Lord of Chaos matched his attack by taking both of it's arms and slamming them against his foe's claws to create an impact powerful enough to once again shake the depths of space. Riku appreciated the fact that there was no inhabited worlds in the vicinity of this battle, or the destruction and deaths would be catastrophic.

With the two dragons locking claws for the moment, both Thanos and the Lord of Chaos got the same idea and began charging flames within their mouths, firing them both out at the same time in the form of condensed streams that collide within an instant and form a sphere of energy at the center that expands outwards until it couldn't be contained anymore, and thus both fighters are sent flying back when the energy explodes.

But the Lord of Chaos recovers first and quickly goes to pull his dual-sided weapon from the side of his body, raising the heavy blade up above his head and moving forward to position himself perfectly before the crystal dragon. He brings the blade down diagonally through the crystal beast, cutting off one of the claws mercilessly in the process. But judging by the lack of reaction, the Lord of Chaos failed to strike Thanos. _"Finding him within this mass will be difficult…" _The Lord of Chaos remarks to Riku through his mind as he flips his weapon around and brings to use his staff.

The three jewels glow brightly, and as the crystal dragon split body reconnects the Lord of Chaos summons forth large, solid metal chains of darkness and light to bind the crystal dragon's arms to it's body. But the command of Thanos made the crystal dragon's body sharpen enough to shred the chains to ribbons, allowing it to immediately go on the offensive again by raising it's bottom right claw up and summoning a sharp pike through the palm while aiming for the center of the beast's armor.

"I have ended many dragons lives in order to craft the front of this castle! I know where your weakness lies, beast!" Thanos states, but as the pike nicked a hole in the front of the Lord of Chaos' armor a claw was raised up that chopped through the pike and broke it instantly. The Lord of Chaos then stated _"You may be powerful and smart, Thanos…But you're outclassed, even with the regeneration properties of that dragon." "Regeneration can make any weak foe stand up to a stronger opponent if you don't have the ability to obliterate the dragon all at once…" _Riku comments through his thoughts.

"_I know that, and truth be told Thanos predicts my moves too perfectly for me to try destroying the dragon with an energy blast." _The Lord of Chaos remarks as he slashes the head of his foe off with a mighty swipe of his claw, and Riku states to him afterwards _"We aren't trying to destroy the dragon anyways…That would obliterate all the fragments of Death." "…True, we need to find a way to reverse the process and put some of those fragments back where they belong." _The Lord of Chaos mentions.

"_ALL of the fragments, you two…I don't care how dangerous something like Nyx is, we'd be truly throwing the balance of the worlds off if we don't return them to their proper locations." _Riku corrects the Lord of Chaos on his choice of words, and the Lord of Chaos states _"Fine, then that requires us to deal with Thanos first…And I think I have an idea on how to get you to him." _The Lord of Chaos' suggestion quickly but weakly causes Riku to state _"Heh…I think I'm too weak to do anything now, but I'll hear what you got to say anyways…"_

"_Don't worry, we can transfer some of our energy over to you, but the plan requires us to take advantage of a couple seconds of time, so we can only bring you up to 50%. You'll have to defeat Thanos with that…Anyways, after we fight Thanos for a little more, we're going to summon a sphere of Chaos energy in front of our chest and use it to send out multiple streams to strike the crystal dragon…You are to get inside the sphere via a rift in the darkness and quickly blend your aura around one of the streams so Thanos won't notice you. We'll then send you straight towards the top of the castle to fight Thanos, but once you're fired off from the sphere you'll have to handle things on your own. Sound good?"_

Riku nods his head from within the darkness and states _"I trust your judgment on this one…The only way to make this work is to execute this plan faster Thanos can think…Even the slightest error will give him enough time to swat me away, and even if you react to his finishing blow he'll never fall for the trick again." _As the two coordinated their thoughts with their minds, the Lord of Chaos had managed to land a powerful punch on the hardened crystal dragon, staggering the beast back enough so he could float back and position his hands in front of his chest while proclaiming through his mind _"Then this is where we end it! Go Riku, finish Thanos off for us!"_

"_I will!" _Riku proclaims within the realm of darkness before he pulls out his dagger and rips a gash into the realm that allows him into fly right into the sphere of Chaos energy that the Lord of Chaos has created between both of his claws. Quickly, Riku takes his aura and swirls it around rapidly so he camouflages with the energy, and only gets a moment to feel the warmth of the energy rejuvenating him before he's launched from the sphere in the form of a burning comet of black and white. The Lord of Chaos' comet projectiles strike through the air rapidly in multiple directions, but only the one Riku is in goes in a chosen direction.

Riku clenches his fists and watches as Thanos' dragon comes closer and closer with each passing second, and with a bit of impatience he uses a tiny bit of his energy to hasten the speed of the comet he was in. He also holds both of his fists out so he'll have a lot more physical force in his projectile, and then charges forth to crash right into the front of the dragon. However, this immediately alerts Thanos of Riku's presence in the castle again, and he quickly summons forth a ton of crystal spikes to try and stab Riku while he had the chance.

But the strength of the comet was too strong, and Riku crashed through every spike that got in his way as he sped through the castle dragon with a determined look on his face. Eventually he reached the throne room where Thanos was, and upon seeing the Mad Titan strapped to his throne with veins connected to him from the organic jeweled heart floating behind him Riku threw his arms out to break the comet and flipped through the air while descending towards the ground.

Riku lands, skidding forward a few feet before he recognizes that the throne room was now greatly distorted by the transformation the entire castle had gone through. It was more compressed and beastly, and the pulsating heart of this beast caused the crystals to be occasionally bathed in a crimson glow. Riku didn't waste time with words towards Thanos as he drew both of his weapons out and swung them, keeping brave in spite of all the wounds across his body that couldn't be healed by the Lord of Chaos' energy transfer.

Thanos looks at Riku with an expression of irritation and exclaimed "You are the most persistent Terran I've ever had to kill! What does it take to end the life of a pitiful puppet?!" With just his thoughts, Thanos causes the heart behind him to beat faster, making the entire dragon roar mightily while summoning forth two gigantic, skeletal hands from the ground beside himself that were made out of blood red crystals.

"_Riku, the dragon is still going to be active! We'll hold it off while you fight Thanos!" _The Lord of Chaos proclaimed from outside the castle, and Riku gave a nod of his head even though he knew the dragon wouldn't know he did so. He then looked at Thanos and said "This ends here Thanos…It's time for you to realize that your ambitions can never be fulfilled!" This sentence, said with the utmost confidence, did nothing but make Thanos roar out as his body exuded an incredible amount of energy "Phoenix of Destruction, it is your ambitions that shall be silenced! I will not allow you to be sent to the past and bring ruin to Lady Death! Fall, as all who stand with you shall as well!"

_Next Time: Life vs. Death_


	6. Unfinished Battle

"_The chains of fate…How long they stretched through this universe. A man, driven by his pursuit of Death at the cost of all other life, has rode the chain through millions of years of history just to reunite with the one he loves. A boy, driven by a desire to protect all even if it costs him his own life, has lived for only a couple years but seen so much…The chains of fate tend to cross at certain intervals, sometimes out of kindness, other times out of cruelty…Those who guide the chains are rather whimsical in that regard."_

"_Life versus death…A struggle that has existed since the first molecule was birthed into the world and will continue until all must be restarted. But here today, two a battle between two of it's champions shall come to an end, and the winner will move on to shape the future of the universe forever. What awaits the champion of death is a continuation of his endless goal, but what will happen if the champion of life wins this battle? …Hehehe, I look forward to the future weaved by that outcome more than anything else." _

These words were all spoken by the robed Chronicler, who floated ethereally in space a far distance away from the planet-sized Lord of Chaos and Thanos' crystal dragon, using his many arms to write down the events of history that he observes all at the same nanosecond. He watched Riku being shot into the dragon to confront Thanos, grinning through the shadow of his hood before he placed one of his "eyes" into the chamber where the two were about to fight.

Inside the chamber, Riku immediately swung his katana against the ground to send forth a slash of light rapidly towards Thanos. The Mad Titan took one of the ruby skeletal hands beside him and brought it forward, swiping away the light energy before infusing the palm of the bone with some of his own energy and placing the hand forward to fire off a widespread blast through the ground towards Riku. The teenage Overlord holds his katana into the ground and lays one hand atop the handle to summon forth a barrier of prismatic light in front of him that was tall and rectangular.

This barrier reflects back Thanos' blast after storing the energy for a brief moment, and the returning blast takes the form of a compressed sphere in order to amplify the power enough to burn right through the palm of the skeletal hand. But as it was not necessary connected to Thanos' life force, the Mad Titan merely had to think in order to reform the hole in the hand while swerving his head to the left before the reflected blast could even nick his head.

But Riku quickly forms the barrier into a perfectly formed bow that allows him to focus a thin arrow of darkness into the center of it that he fires off through the hole in the skeletal hand before it heals up, hoping to hit Thanos by redirecting the path of the arrow the moment it passes the hole. But Thanos rips his right hand from the crystal bind he created on his throne and lifts his hand up to grab and shatter the arrow with little effort. Riku was hoping this would happen though, since that would break Thanos' control over his dragon.

…Or so he thought, as the dragon's roar could still be heard as strong as before, suggesting that breaking Thanos' control over the dragon would not be easy. Riku then noted the streams connecting Thanos' body to the organic jewel above, but knew that trying to attack those would just leave him vulnerable to a counterstrike from Thanos' incredible might. The man could think rather quickly regardless of what type of foes he faced, it's what allowed him to deal with his light speed movements earlier, after all, and that just meant that Riku's only option was to stay back for the moment and keep Thanos' mind busy with long-range attacks until he finds an opening.

"_Can't waste the chance Sodenko and Takashi gave me…" _Riku notes in his mind regarding his renewed strength, and quickly he dispels his weapons and holds both of his arms out while rapid-firing multiple streams of light and darkness towards Thanos, guiding whichever ones he could over the skeletal hands and exploding the ones that come close to them to try and shatter apart the hands completely.

But Thanos merely used his one hand to fire off a giant spread of energy that obliterated each and everyone of Riku's attacks. He then gripped his gauntlet tightly into a fist, commanding the left and right skeletal hands to scratch at the ground, which makes cracks of red crystal break through the floor and approach Riku. Riku sensed something incredibly foreboding about the cracks and took to the air, while the cracks continued to advance forward and deprive the floor of it's pristine beauty in a matter of seconds. All that remained of it all was the patch of floor behind Thanos' skeletal hands, and the barren, cracked ground below reeked of the stench of death.

"_I get the feeling I'll lose a lot of my strength if I land back down…" _Riku comments, cursing the fact that Thanos has forced him to fight in the air as he turns towards the Mad Titan and sees him smirk behind the precipice of his skeletal hands. But without hesitation, Riku sets his wings aglow and thrusts both of them forward, sending feathers of light and needles of darkness rapidly through the skeletal hands, weaving the two attacks so closely together that they complete disrupt the structure of the hands with all the holes put into them and cause the two of them to crumble apart onto the ground.

This gives Riku enough of an opening to pull his wings back and thrust his right hand out, releasing from the palm a flash of light bright enough to blind even Thanos, though Riku would have to keep the brightness lingering for a few seconds and thus was forced to fly forward with his eyes shut in order to go through with his next attack. But familiarity with the battlefield's current condition allowed him to quickly make it towards where the streams were. Riku drew his katana in a second and slashed across the top of the streams, but for reasons he could not determine the katana did not even scratch the streams.

In fact, the result was quite the opposite, as the streams seemed to reject Riku's attack and created a recoiling force that blew Riku back a few feet while the blinding light faded away. Thanos, now able to see again, quickly recognized that Riku had gone for an attack on his streams and commanded the rebirth of his skeletal hands in a mere two seconds and sent both of them back with a tug of his fingers so they could try and grab Riku out of the air. But Riku was no fool, and quickly spun himself around and cut through the hands with a single swipe of his katana before they could even touch him.

As he flew forward with a single burst of speed, however, he noticed the whispers of death going into his ears while he passed by the hands, which was the point where he recognized what was up with the red crystals. They were infused with the power of death, the energies necessary for this siphoned from the fragments Thanos had gathered over the years. The streams connected to Thanos' body must also have the same energies within, making it reasonable to believe that the power of light alone could not cut through them.

"_But wait…Thanos is commanding the 'heart' of this dragon, the heart filled with the energies of death…" _Riku's thoughts as he turns around to face the Mad Titan causes him to briefly widen his eyes in realization, and upon drawing both of his weapons to send waves of energy at the skeletal hands to keep them cut down Thanos breaks his other arm free from the throne and holds his hands out to fire off a large quantity of his own energy is a cone-shaped blast. This blast disintegrates his skeletal hands for a moment but strikes Riku square on, launching the boy out of the air and sending him hurtling towards the deathly floor.

Riku spreads his wings out and keeps himself floating inches of the ground, his heart beating rapidly due to how close he was to this deathly presence. He quickly lifts himself upright and looks forward at Thanos while floating a couple feet off the ground, thinking to himself in regards to his early revelation _"…Unbelievable…Thanos isn't even aware of what's been done to him. He probably thinks he's using life energy to power this dragon. Or maybe he's purposely being ignorant about this…" _

But even with what Riku has discovered, he couldn't at the moment figure out how he was going to handle this information in regards to the battle. For the moment, he watched the skeletal hands reform while the Mad Titan lowered his arms down for the moment. The man was incredibly durable, incredibly persistent, and in the long run he was going to win a battle of attrition against Riku, especially since he wasn't at full strength.

"_I have to find a way to use what I discovered against Thanos…" _Riku thought to himself before crossing his weapons in front of his body to block the lashing of one of the skeletal hands. The swords, immortal and unbreakable, could not be affected by the deathly touch, though Riku had to deal with the anguished scream of the damned as the sparks flew from the collision of diamond and crystal. Riku then performs an instantaneous slash to cut the fingers off of the hand, but then Thanos sent the other hand out to punch right through the other hand and strike Riku in the chest of his armor.

Riku feels his strength dwindle a bit once the skeletal hand connected with him, but this was sharply contrasted with a sudden increase in the temperature around him as he's sent flying back. _"What the hell…? Don't tell me Thanos is…" _Riku recovers and expresses disbelief in his thoughts, and noticed that the crystal walls were glowing a fervent yellow-orange. _"Sodenko, Takashi, what's going on out there?!" _Riku inquired frantically.

But he would have a hard time getting answer from the Lord of Chaos, as the mighty dragon was currently being pressed against the side of a medium-sized sun by Thanos' crystal dragon, who was holding the Lord of Chaos by the neck at the moment. _"T-Thanos is planning to burn us against the side of the sun…We can break free eventually, we're incredibly resistant against this type of heat…But if you stick around for too long…" _The Lord of Chaos' warning did not need to finish as Riku nodded his head and stated "Thanos…You plan to make me burn in the heat of the sun, while you survive…Is that it?"

"I can handle the heat of the brightest sun. I enjoy it's splendor, how beautiful and yet deadly it is to all who are foolish enough to dare come near it…An ironic fate for you, as the mighty Phoenix shall be destroyed by that which he controls the best. You cannot win." Thanos had every right to be certain about his victory with the conditions he set up. The Lord of Chaos was distracted by the heat of the sun, the floor would drain Riku's energy if he touched it, the skeletal hands could greatly drain Riku's strength if they attack, and Thanos himself was far too aware of his surroundings to try and attack him directly.

All Riku had to go on was the gaping hole in Thanos' armor that he had created earlier and the detail he noticed about the type of energy going out of Thanos' body. When Riku focused on these two details for a moment though, his eyes widen and he realized that he had the solution to his problem this entire time, and felt like an idiot for not recognizing this earlier. Closing his eyelids for a moment and taking a deep breath as the heat of the sun seeps through the dragon more and more, Riku feels the weight of his life, Sodenko and Takashi's, and even the 'lives' of all those fragments of Death that Thanos had captured on his shoulders.

Riku then dispels his weapons and watches as Thanos' skeletal hands fly at him, opening his eyelids and immediately flying underneath the fist hand, moving so quickly that Thanos has to react just as fast in order to make the second hand change it's course and try to intercept Riku's flight, but the boy quickly summons his dagger and tears a gash into the darkness realm so he can reappear behind the hand, after which he dispels his weapon and flips forward before landing on the safest part of the ground.

At this point the next move would be made depending on how Thanos chooses to react to how close Riku was to him. The Mad Titan angrily lifts his hands up and prepared to strike Riku down with an energy blast, but the moment Riku sees the glow in Thanos' gauntlets he swings both of his hands out and combines both light and darkness together in his own hands, but creates a rather blank glow around them before leaping straight at Thanos.

His wings folded back and a confident look of determination on his face, Riku held his hands out and charged right through Thanos' energy blast, the Mad Titan putting so much effort into this attack that he left his chest completely open. Now was the time for Riku's final move, where he would win not by overpowering the Mad Titan, but by revealing to him the truth of this whole ordeal with a single strike, for in his hands was not the power of Chaos, but the ability to bring back the dead that he has used once before in this form…The power of life itself.

At the tail end of Thanos' blast, Riku thrusts both of his hands forward while letting out a pained but energetic roar, and the energies of life infused into his hands are poured into Thanos' body for but a brief moment once he connects with the man's bare chest. Immediately, Riku drops his feet to the ground and holds his position as Thanos feels the effects of his attack, his focus on both his own energy and the crystals around him breaking as his body briefly cracks across all parts of his skin, with a pure and natural light erupting from each crack simultaneously.

The energy flows back into the streams connecting Thanos to the heart of his dragon, and that is infused with it enough to cause IT to start cracking apart to the point where it shatters into nothingness and engulfs the atmosphere with the sensation of life. Once Riku was certain of this result, he pulled his hands away from the surprised Thanos and leapt back while thinking out _"Sodenko, Takashi, push the dragon away from the sun!" "Unbelievable…You actually got him to lose control of the beast! We'll be right on that!"_

The Lord of Chaos' response is followed by the entire compound being moved away from the sun rather simply, but that was not the main thing Riku focused on. He was weakened by using the power of life against Thanos, but he could still maintain his Chaos Form and was on his feet enough to stand before the Mad Titan, who was suffering the effects of Riku's strike. The man quickly convulsed and threw up purple blood from his mouth, the impure liquid going onto his right gauntlet as blood leaks out slightly from across his skin, though it's only noticeable from his chest and neck.

Thanos quickly collapses onto his knees in front of his throne, something that outraged him rather immensely as he raised his head up and exclaimed "H-How dare you make me kneel…What did you do to me?!" Riku did not look at Thanos, shaking his head in cold pity as he turned around, which made Thanos barely raise his hand up and exclaim "Don't you dare turn your back on me!" Riku quickly says to Thanos quietly "…You really don't know what's going on, do you? What I did to you was infuse the energies of rejuvenation into your body…The power of life, so to speak."

"That should not have been enough to harm me this much! You did something else to my body!" Thanos exclaims in a raspy tone, and Riku states to him immediately "You're right…Even with your close connection to Death, my strike would not have harmed you that much. But I have to thank Death…It was her contribution that allowed me to do this." "How dare you speak her name!" Thanos exclaims in a very offended tone.

"…Thanos, your journey to bring the Death you know back into this world will not end the way you think. The 'higher-ups' split Death into an innumerable number of fragments, but before that happened she gave you one parting gift…She infused your body with a fragment of herself, making you a perfect representation of Death. THAT is why my power over life could harm you so much, even in such a short dosage." Riku explains what he had figured out about Thanos' current state with confidence, but this confidence made Thanos state "Lady Death is a part of me…How dare you assume such a thing!"

"You are the one closest to Death, Thanos. But she has used you before to satisfy her ends…Regardless of the lengths you go to please her, she does nothing but deceive you and turn your feelings against you. In the end, her plan was to use your loyalty to ensure that you would not question that lack of life in your body, and eventually the endgame of Death's little plan was to have you combine your body along with all the other fragments of Death to bring her back to life and erase your entire existence." Riku ends with his explanation on a rather melancholy note.

Thanos still denied what Riku said for a moment, understandable considering the years he has spent trying to bring the one he loved back to life, and the Mad Titan tried to raise his hand up and control his crystals to attack Riku, but he did not have enough strength to do so now. Thanos then laid his hand down and scowled, saying in disbelief towards the boy "Phoenix of Destruction…Is there any limit to your audaciousness? You will stop at nothing to destroy all in your path…The universe I was from, all those who lived in it, Lady Death and my perception of love towards her…You are a monster above all else…"

At this point Riku closes his eyelids and sighs, turning around and folding his arms together before stating bluntly "Now that neither of us have the strength to fight, I want you to understand something…I'm not the Phoenix of Destruction. I have heard of the titles of all three reincarnations of the Elemental Overlord from a being called the Chronicler, and I am certainly not designated as the Phoenix of Destruction." The moment the Chronicler is brought up, Thanos' expression becomes one of shock for a moment before he states "You have met with that ethereal being? …Then perhaps what you say is true…"

"…That's all it took to convince you? Just what is the Chronicler that his name would be enough to get even YOU to listen, Thanos?" Riku says with more surprise than Thanos expressed, and the Mad Titan quietly explains "I met him not long after I regained my memories, and he told me the title of the man I needed to destroy in order to avenge Lady Death. But if you are not the Phoenix of Destruction, then that means…I have likely missed my chance to stop him before he is sent back in time." The melancholy of Thanos' realization sets in on his mind rather quickly, and combined with what Riku said about him being a fragment of Lady Death it was quite easy to see why his expression would become one of distress.

In fact, Riku began to feel a bit of genuine pity towards Thanos, but kept his pity only in the mind as he stated to the man "Maybe it is too late to stop the Phoenix of Destruction from going back in time, but there's no way the 'higher-ups' would've kept him in the past. He has to have been brought back to the present, which means there's still a chance to kill him for what he has done…And I have a good idea of just who I need to look for. Thanos, I know you've spent a long time trying to seek revenge against the Phoenix of Destruction, but he's an Elemental Overlord just like me, so don't you think it'd make more sense for me to combat him?"

Thanos looked at Riku and said after a humored chuckle "That man destroyed The Living Tribunal…Do you not understand what kind of power is necessary for such a task?" Riku shakes his head and remarks "You say that, but that doesn't scare me. I won't let someone like the Phoenix of Destruction get away with destroying an entire universe." Riku's bravery causes Thanos to state to him in a rather impressed tone "Hahaha…You are quite possibly the biggest fool I have ever met, but if you manage to succeed where billions failed then you will have earned my respect."

"…While we're on the subject of death here, don't think for a second that I've forgotten the crimes you committed in the last universe. Even if a trillion years passed, you could never shed those sins from your heart, Thanos." Riku states with a cold glare towards Thanos, and the man said to him "Heheh…So you plan to kill me then?" Riku shook his head and turned around, swinging his fists out as he goes back to his regular form before stating "There's no point in killing you."

"What?" Thanos said in a confused tone, and Riku told him slowly but calmly "If I killed you, then you'd be the only victor. Keeping you alive is the worst punishment I can imagine…You now have the knowledge that you are a fragment of Death, so you can continue on your little quest to restore her true form at the cost of your existence, throwing it away for the one who you love even though she doesn't truly care for you. You can kill yourself, but then what will that accomplish? And if you try and cause trouble for myself or any innocent beings, I will know, and I will stop you again. You created this prison for yourself Thanos…Live the rest of your eternal life in it, alone, while I go end the Phoenix of Destruction's life."

Riku doesn't acknowledge Thanos further after that as he lifts up off the ground and quickly flies off, making his way for the hole he made through the front of the dragon, while the Mad Titan was left on his hands and knees, looking absolutely defeated to the extent that he could not even say a word for the moment. He had no reason to live, he had no reason to die…Riku could never defeat Thanos in direct combat, but this psychology blow would leave the Mad Titan where he stands for quite a long time…

Back with Riku, he slowly flies his way outside of the crystal dragon, feeling a bit melancholy still about the fact that another Elemental Overlord had caused so much destruction and he had not been aware of this until now. He felt responsible for the man's crimes, which is why it was imperative that he find the guy as soon as possible. But he has reason not to focus on these thoughts as the moment he leaves Thanos' castle dragon he finds both Takashi and Sodenko waiting for them, the titanic black dragon and holy, serpentine white dragon floating close together but no longer fused as the Lord of Chaos.

Takashi looked down at Riku and said in an impressed tone _"…So you pulled it off, huh? You managed to defeat Thanos. But what about saving Pop Star?" _Riku tells him while weakly folding his arms against his chest and says with a smile "The heart of Thanos' castle was the source of the crystallization effect. Pop Star should be back to normal, but I think I'll hold off on visiting the place after all that…" _"It's understandable, this whole experience has been very tough for us all…" _Sodenko says gently.

After that, Riku and the two dragons were silent for a few seconds, but it was Takashi who lifted her head up and stated _"…We heard everything you and Thanos talked about. So your new goal is to stop the Phoenix of Destruction, right?" _Riku nodded his head but admitted "Though truth be told, I am just going to make that a high priority…I need to still save whatever worlds I come across first and foremost, after all." _"Then we'll still be your allies…Together we can stop the Elemental Overlord responsible for the last universe's destruction." _Sodenko offers.

"No, I can't allow that. You're both freed from your bonds now, and I don't think it's right to keep yourselves tethered to me now that you can go wherever you want." Riku states with the utmost concern for the two dragons' well being prominent in his tone. _"Haha…Yeah, I suppose it'd suck to stick around you…No no Riku, what we're offering here is for you to call us for help whenever you need it. We've formed a strong bond because of your Chaos Form, so all you need to do is connect to us via your thoughts and we'll come to you no matter how far apart we are in the universe." _Takashi explains in a thoughtful man as he taps the side of his cranium with one claw.

"…The enemy is going to be strong, you do realize that, right?" Riku comments while hanging his head slightly, and Takashi remarks after a momentary scoff _"Come on now, when has that ever stopped you or I before? We're going to help you regardless of how strong the enemy is." _Riku smiles at this response and states with the utmost appreciation to the two dragons "Yeah, I suppose I could just revive one of you two if you happen to die helping me, right?"

"_Hahaha, that's a rather casual joke coming from you, Riku." _Takashi was humored instead of offended by what was said, and Riku looked up and remarked "I guess that's true, isn't it? By the way, there's one thing I'd like to ask of you two at the very least before we go our separate ways. Can you set up something that will allow you to keep an eye on Thanos? I do not trust him to just stay still, and if I need to deal with him at a moment's notice then you can tell me." _"Can do. I'll set up a portal of darkness invisible to his perception." _Takashi says without hesitation.

"…Then that's all there is to say, isn't it?" Riku inquires after a moment of silence, smiling a bit while hiding a couple tears that formed in his eyes. _"We're going to end up seeing each other again. The universe might be a big place, but we know plenty of ways to find each other again." _Sodenko states calmly, and Riku mentioned to the both of them "We may be different people, but we all share the same space, the same universe…Takashi, Sodenko, I'm glad I met the two of you. Even if we traveled together for only a year, your companionship kept me going strong, and your help was invaluable today in stopping Thanos. I-I can't wait until we meet again, no matter how short or long it takes, you hear me?!"

Folding his arms together as his sister chuckles merrily at Riku's tearful farewell, Takashi says to his friend _"But right now, you got a job to do. Find the Phoenix of Destruction and stop him, not just for everyone in the last universe, but for the safety of everyone in the current universe as well." _"Farewell then, Takashi and Sodenko!" Riku exclaims before he flies off away from the two mighty dragons, but once Riku was far enough away Takashi and Sodenko were seen crying a bit in a sentimental manner.

Riku himself cried for a bit after leaving his dragon allies behind, but he knew he had to stay strong for what was to come ahead. The day where he find and confront the Phoenix of Destruction would happen eventually, this was inevitable considering the nature of this journey Riku has been put on, but it was impossible to imagine just how the clash was going to go. He knew just who the Phoenix of Destruction was, but not his name or appearance…All he had to recognize him was the fact that he controlled the elements like he can, and that would be more than enough…

Meanwhile, as Riku flew through the endless expanse of space and the two dragon siblings flew off to enjoy their new freedom together, the Chronicler could be seen once more finishing off a book with a grin on his face. _"So this is what fate has decided…The Phoenix of Balance is on the road to confront the Phoenix of Destruction. Hehehe…This will be a fascinating encounter, that I can be sure of. But what is the Phoenix of Rejuvenation's role in all of this, you may ask, those who exist beyond the static veil? Hehehe, I am not one to spoil the chronicles of history, but perhaps you will learn the answer to that soon enough…" _

**Special 2: The Last Exodus**

**THE END…?**


End file.
